Amami-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about forty-one thousand (41,390 in 2020). Because this city was established in 2006 when the city at the island’s center, a town and a village were newly brought into one, the population statistics for the city area cover the period from 2010 onward, when the post-merger figures are reflected in the Population Census. From the 46,121 of that 2010 it has decreased to 43,156 in 2015 and 41,390 in 2020.

Looking inside, the figure of a city at the center of a subtropical island appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 28.5% in 2015 to 32.5% in 2020, passing three in ten. The household-with-children share is 18.6% in 2020, and the crude birth rate is 7.1 per thousand in 2020. The Childcare Waitlist remained, slight, in 2024, and became zero in 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.27 in fiscal 2023 — a level able to cover only a little under three-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, with a large degree of reliance on the local allocation tax. The figure shows in the numbers: a center of an island that nurtured silk weaving and island songs, losing population after the merger while advancing its aging. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the island, the weaving, the songs, and the merger.

What supports this town’s frame is the landform of an island covered in subtropical laurel-leaf forest, silk weaving, island songs and dances, and the merger of a town and a village. The starting layer is the subtropical island. This island is covered in subtropical forest where evergreen laurel-leaf trees grow deep; in the forest live creatures found nowhere else, and at the river mouths spread groves of trees steeped in the tide. A hot, rain-rich climate nurtured a nature peculiar to this island. That rich nature was later counted among the world’s natural heritage. The subtropical laurel-leaf island was the foundation of this town.

On this island, people nurtured handcraft and song. The silk weaving of dyeing silk again and again in the colors of mud and plants and weaving fine patterns took root as the island’s handcraft. Alongside tilling the fields, people traded songs and inherited dances that prayed for and celebrated the harvest of the five grains. The path to becoming a city, too, mirrors this town. In 2006, the city at the island’s center, a town and a village were newly brought into one, and the present city was established. The subtropical laurel-leaf island nurtured a peculiar nature, silk weaving and island songs, and upon that past the merger of a town and a village was layered — and so the present Amami was made.

What characterizes Amami is that, while it holds the past of silk weaving and island songs, it is losing population after the merger. Seen in the post-merger city area, from the 46,121 of 2010 to the 41,390 of 2020, some five thousand were lost over ten years. Even on this island that dyed and wove silk and inherited songs and dances, because it is separated from the mainland by the sea, one can read that some of the younger generation moved toward the mainland in search of work and study, and the town’s age as a whole rose. That the share aged 65 and over passed three in ten at 32.5% in 2020 is an expression of that.

On the other hand, the crude birth rate is 7.1 per thousand in 2020, and the household-with-children share is 18.6% in 2020. The Childcare Waitlist remained, slight, in 2024, and became zero in 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.27 is a level able to cover only a little under three-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, showing the large degree of reliance on the local allocation tax seen in common across island lands separated from the mainland by the sea. The center of an island that nurtured silk weaving and island songs is now, after the merger, losing population while advancing its aging. The population fell after the merger, the elderly passed three in ten, and tax revenue covers only a little under three-tenths of expenditure. On an island separated from the mainland by the sea, the movement of the younger generation crossing to the mainland in search of work and study appears overlaid in these three numbers.

In Amami, several faces of differing character overlap. One is the past of a subtropical laurel-leaf island — covered in subtropical forest where evergreen laurel-leaf trees grow deep, holding creatures found nowhere else and groves of trees steeped in the tide, counted among the world’s natural heritage. Another is the character of a land of silk weaving — nurturing, as the island’s handcraft, the silk weaving of dyeing silk again and again in the colors of mud and plants and weaving fine patterns. And it bears the face of a land of island songs and dances — alongside tilling the fields, trading songs and inheriting dances that prayed for and celebrated the harvest of the five grains. The hot, rain-rich subtropical climate called into one and the same island a peculiar nature, the handcraft of dyeing silk in the colors of that nature, and song and dance.

The subtropical island where evergreen laurel-leaf trees grow deep bred a peculiar nature and rooted in it silk weaving and island songs, and the outline of the present Amami is drawn. The geography of "a subtropical island where evergreen laurel-leaf trees grow deep" nurtured a nature found nowhere else, and left, as handcraft, mud-dyed silk and island songs — in this order this town was formed.