Tomigusuku-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 65,000 (64,612 in 2020). Its course is a single road of increase. From 52,516 in 2005, through 57,261 in 2010, 61,119 in 2015, and 64,612 in 2020, it has steadily increased by several thousand every five years. Note that this place became a city in 2002, and before that it was a village. The municipal data of the System of Social and Demographic Statistics can be taken from 2005, and it needs to be read apart from the course as a village before that.

Looking inside, the figure proper to an ever-increasing city appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 12.8% in 2005 to 19.7% in 2020, yet still does not reach two in ten, and is strikingly young among the nation, where many cities exceed three in ten. The household-with-children share is very high at 30.8% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist, at 15 in 2025, slightly remains, mirroring the strength of demand. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.63 in fiscal 2023 — a middling level for a regional city, whose own tax revenue can cover about six-tenths of expenditure. The figure shows in the numbers: the gusuku city keeps increasing its population, its aging strikingly held down, and its household-with-children share high. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the gusuku of the Southern King and city status.

Tomigusuku’s frame is set by its location adjoining Naha and the past of a gusuku on a height looking down over a lagoon. The old layer is the gusuku. Around 1400, when Ryukyu was divided into three powers — north, central and south — a figure who would later become the king of the south is said to have built a castle on a height commanding the shore of Lake Man. This is Tomigusuku gusuku, and it became the origin of the city’s name. It is said to have been a large castle with three walls and five gates, and the report of a foreign envoy who came to the island in later ages is said to have recorded its scale. Much of the castle’s remains were lost after the war, but the city’s name still derives from this castle of the king of Nanzan.

And this city holds Lake Man, registered under the Ramsar Convention. This tidal flat, seen from the gusuku, was registered in 1999 as the first in Okinawa Prefecture, and the eleventh nationwide, as a wetland of international importance under the convention. Further, this city has a rare past in the course of its population too. After the return to the mainland, the location adjoining Naha called in people, and the population suddenly increased. While still a village, its population grew to a scale that became the largest nationwide, and in 2002 it moved from village to city. Beginning with the castle of the king of the south, passing through being the most populous village in Japan, and becoming a city — this city’s form stands upon the past held by the geography of a location adjoining Naha.

What characterizes Tomigusuku is that, while it holds the past of the gusuku of the Southern King, it keeps increasing its population through its location adjoining Naha. From 52,516 in 2005 to 64,612 in 2020, some twelve thousand were added over fifteen years. One can read that this land adjoining Naha, the center of the main island of Okinawa, has kept calling in people as a residential area. While many cities lose population, that Tomigusuku keeps increasing is an expression of its location in the suburbs of Naha.

This increase shows in the content of the population too. The share aged 65 and over is, at 19.7% in 2020, still short of two in ten. In addition to young households continuing to flow in, Okinawa is known from of old as a region with a high birth rate even among the nation, and one can read that the youth is kept in the city’s age composition. That the household-with-children share is very high at 30.8%, and that the Childcare Waitlist slightly remains at 15 in 2025, are expressions of the inflow and abundance of child-rearing households pushing up the demand for childcare. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.63 is middling for a regional city, and one can read that the incomes and the like of the inflowing households support the tax source. The gusuku city is now, as a residential area in the suburbs of Naha, keeping its population increasing, its aging strikingly held down, and its household-with-children share high. The population keeps increasing, the aging is strikingly on the low side, and the household-with-children share is high — the inflow from the location adjoining Naha, and the high birth of the region that is Okinawa, overlap and support this youth.

In Tomigusuku, several pasts of differing character overlap. Tomigusuku gusuku, said to have been built around 1400 by the king of the south on a height looking down over Lake Man, is the old layer that became the origin of the city’s name. Lake Man, registered in 1999 as the first under the Ramsar Convention in Okinawa Prefecture, keeps the nature of the tidal flat to this day. And the location adjoining Naha has given this city, while still a village, the largest scale of population nationwide, and the character of a residential area that has kept calling in people even after moving to a city in 2002.

From the land of a gusuku of the era of the three principalities, through the land that was the most populous village in Japan, to a city that keeps increasing its population. The geography of adjoining Naha called in, in old times, the castle of the king of the south, and in modern times called in people as a residential area. On the height that commands Lake Man, the castle of the south and an ever-increasing population are folded together, and the present Tomigusuku stands.