Naha-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 318,000 (317,625 in 2020). Over the five years from the 319,435 of 2015, it decreased by some eighteen hundred. As the prefectural capital of Okinawa, it has entered, like many of the nation’s regional cities, a stage of slight decline.

What I want to note here is that the aging rate, at 22.8% (2020), stays on the lower side among the nation’s prefectural capitals. It has risen from the 19.9% of 2015, but compared with the prefectural capitals of Honshu where aging has advanced, it still keeps a young composition. The under-15 population decreased from 49,811 (2015) to 46,166 (2020), by some thirty-six hundred over five years. The household-with-children share is 21.0% (2020). The residential land price is around 220,000 yen per square meter (220,000 yen in 2026), a high level for a prefectural capital. This can be read as the appearance of a structure in which population and functions gather on the limited land of an island. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.83 (2023): not reaching 1.0, the shortfall made up by the local allocation tax, within the structure of a regional city. The Childcare Waitlist decreased slightly, from 18 (2024) to 17 (2025). Why such numbers take this form cannot be read without going back to the past of a port town of a floating island.

Naha’s frame rests upon the rupture and continuity of a small island floating in a bay that flourished through trade, once almost vanished, and was rebuilt. Originally Naha was a "floating island" in the bay where the Naha and Asato Rivers pour out. In 1451 the Chokotei causeway was built and traffic with Shuri opened, and along with the prosperity of Tomari and Naha Port, a town called the Four Towns of Naha — including Wakasamachi and Izumizaki — took shape. It is one example of what historical geography calls "a commercial city arising with a port at its core."

Naha was a commercial city that flourished as the window of overseas trade of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Shuri Castle, the royal castle, was placed on the hill overlooking Naha Port, the base of overseas trade, and port and royal castle, as one, upheld the kingdom’s economy. The location as a port town, and the character of a commercial city built up through trade, are this town’s first foundation.

The second foundation, the one that decided this town’s self-definition, is war damage and the recovery from it. In the air raid of October 10, 1944, roughly nine-tenths of the old Naha urban area burned down. In the ground battle of the following 1945 the town was almost completely destroyed, and after the war it was for a time a no-entry zone. Naha’s recovery began in 1945, when potters of Tsuboya entered the city under the name of industrial recovery. The scorched street recovered as a shopping district at an astonishing speed, and that area came in time to be called the "Miracle Mile" — Kokusai-dori. The prefectural office had also moved to Izumizaki in 1919, and the city’s center had shifted from the western coastal side to the inland side. And in 1972 Okinawa returned to the mainland. That the origin of a commercial city of a floating island was, after once almost vanishing, rebuilt as a prefectural capital beside the same port — this is this town’s past.

What characterizes Naha is that, while the total population decreased by eighteen hundred and the absolute number of children too decreased by some thirty-six hundred, the aging rate, at 22.8%, stays on the lower side for a prefectural capital. While many of the prefectural capitals of Honshu, where aging has advanced, pass a quarter, Naha still keeps a young composition. Compared with prefectural capitals such as Kanazawa and Fukui, where the aging rate has reached the late twenties percent, the rise of the generational center of gravity is gentle.

The Childcare Waitlist decreased slightly, from 18 (2024) to 17 (2025). Here a reading-over is needed. While many prefectural capitals have reached a zero waitlist, the fact that a two-digit waitlist remains in Naha can, conversely, be read as the appearance that the childcare demand of the child-rearing layer is still thick. The absolute number of children is decreasing, but within a structure in which population and young households gather on the limited land of an island, the supply of childcare has not fully caught up to demand. Even the same "waitlist" differs in meaning between the figure of a town where children have greatly thinned and the figure of a town where, with the child-rearing layer still thick, supply has not caught up. The head count of children decreases, aging is gentle, and childcare demand stays thick. These three are not separate events but, from one structure — that young households keep gathering on the limited land of an island — branch off at once and appear in the numbers.

In Naha, several faces of differing character overlap. One is Naha Port, which was the window of the kingdom’s overseas trade and still functions as a logistics hub linking the mainland and abroad with Okinawa. Another is the commercial concentration centered on Kokusai-dori — the "Miracle Mile" — recovered from the scorched earth, which keeps inscribing the very self-definition of postwar Naha. Further, Shuri Castle, the royal castle, keeps on the hill overlooking the port the memory of the town of the kingdom’s age.

Naha, as the prefectural capital of Okinawa, gathers the functions of administration, economy and transport into one. From a commercial city of a floating island to a trade port of the Ryukyu Kingdom, to a town almost completely burned, to a prefectural capital rebuilt from the scorched earth — the origin of "a land beside a port floating in a bay" has changed over its functions era by era. Naha Port too, and Kokusai-dori too, rest, traced to their source, upon the same location of being beside a port. That, even after once almost vanishing, it was rebuilt beside the same port — that continuity is a town that gathered the functions of a prefectural capital upon the limited land of an island.