Ishigaki-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about forty-eight thousand (47,637 in 2020). This city’s population is not a step from a large merger but a curve that has gently increased over twenty years, from 43,302 in 2000 to 45,183 in 2005, 46,922 in 2010, 47,564 in 2015, and 47,637 in 2020. While many remote islands lose population, it is a curve that has kept increasing, however slightly.

Looking inside, like a southern island, its aging is shallow. The share aged 65 and over, at 22.0% in 2020, is low for a regional city. The household-with-children share is high, at 22.3%, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.45 in fiscal 2023 — not reaching half of expenditure with its own tax revenue, with a large dependence on the allocation tax. The figure shows in the numbers: the center of the Yaeyama Islands, increasing its population slightly and keeping its aging shallow, while its finances are upheld by the allocation tax. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the Yaeyama hub character and the airport.

Ishigaki’s frame is set by the geography of an island lying at the center of the Yaeyama Islands. Ishigaki Island lies in a southern sea far from the mainland, about 410 kilometers southwest even of Naha, the prefectural capital. By that very distance, this island became the central city that binds the politics, economy, tourism and culture of the Yaeyama Islands — Ishigaki Island, Taketomi, Yonaguni and the rest. More than about eighty percent of Yaeyama’s population gathers in this Ishigaki. The role of a hub upholding the living of the surrounding islands set this island’s character.

This island’s modern age also holds a memory of shadow. After the war, malaria spread explosively in Yaeyama, and many lives were lost. This land has experienced a calamity brought by the climate of a southern island.

And in recent years, the island’s front gate was renewed. In 2013, New Ishigaki Airport opened. By this, routes directly linking Ishigaki with the major cities of the mainland increased, and the convenience as a gateway to Yaeyama greatly rose. The position of a southern sea far from the mainland bred a hub character that binds Yaeyama, and through the ravages of malaria, a new airport became the front gate — the present Ishigaki’s form stands upon the past of that hub character.

What characterizes Ishigaki is that, while many remote islands lose population, against the background of its role as the hub of Yaeyama, it increases its population slightly. Over twenty years some four thousand increased, and the share aged 65 and over, at 22.0%, stays low for a regional city. As the center of the Yaeyama Islands, people and economy gather from the surrounding islands, and tourism and other industries have made working places — this can be read as an expression of that. The height of the household-with-children share at 22.3%, and the zero waitlist, also show the youth of that population composition.

On the other hand, the Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.45 is a level that does not even reach half of expenditure with its own tax revenue, with a large dependence on the allocation tax. It mirrors that, against the administrative expenditure that tends to run high by the geography of a remote island far from the mainland, the tax source of a tourism-centered island has its limits. Even with the population increasing slightly and the aging shallow, the heaviness of the finances peculiar to a remote island remains — both faces appear in these numbers. The center of Yaeyama is now increasing its population slightly and keeping its aging shallow, while its finances are upheld by the allocation tax. The population is a slight increase, the aging shallow, the fiscal strength on the weak side. The hub character that binds Yaeyama draws in people and young households, while, by being a remote island far from the mainland, the administrative expenditure runs high — two circumstances work at once and appear in the numbers.

In Ishigaki, several faces of differing character overlap. One is the past of a central city that binds the politics, economy, tourism and culture of the Yaeyama Islands, where more than eighty percent of Yaeyama’s population gathers — an origin as a hub upholding the living of the surrounding islands. Another is New Ishigaki Airport, opened in 2013, which keeps the character of a front gate to Yaeyama. And the geography of a remote island far from the mainland gives this island the peculiar structure of a hub of a southern sea over four hundred kilometers even from the prefectural capital.

An island floating in a southern sea far from the mainland became, by that very distance, the center that binds Yaeyama, and now holds a new airport as its front gate. That precisely because it is set apart it became a hub — there lies this island’s unexpectedness. It is an island where the geography of "lying at the center of the Yaeyama Islands, far from the mainland" first called in a hub character, and later set down an airport.