Ishikawa Prefecture

Ishikawa is a prefecture where two poles quietly pull at each other—the highest life expectancy and the lowest rate of population change. In between, the other indicators settle near the national average with only small gaps, and neither a strength that stands out nor a weakness that gapes open enters the field of view. This very lack of flash can be called the prefecture’s characteristic.

Break down the strength side and life expectancy and the unemployment rate both rank high nationally (each around 8th), while the number of physicians (per 100,000 people) sits above the middle—the stability of medical care and employment supports the underlying strength. On the weakness side, meanwhile, led by the rate of population change, per-capita prefectural income and the home-ownership rate fall slightly below average. The stability of daily life runs high, but the room for people and income to grow runs thin—this is a structure in which that asymmetry is easily concealed by the average value and the overall ranking.

The high cultural standing represented by Kenrokuen, too, does not directly fill in the numbers for population or income. This is a prefecture where you can live long and in good health, yet the numbers on the “grow” and “earn” side are not rising. The numbers of a prefecture that left behind the gardens of the million-koku domain split diagonally between high longevity and thin population—and if I smooth that diagonal flat to talk about it, the most distinctive shape of the prefecture called Ishikawa disappears. I want to move on to the next section with the two ends left intact as separate numbers.

In speaking of Ishikawa’s future, the discipline is to place first the Noto Peninsula earthquake of New Year’s Day 2024 and the heavy rains in Oku-Noto that followed. The prefecture drew up the “Ishikawa Creative Recovery Plan” and is advancing reconstruction informed by hearings in the disaster areas and the views of experts. Population outflow from the Noto region and the rebuilding of livelihoods are long-run downward factors, but at the same time this very recovery has become the central axis of prefectural policy over the medium to long term—the prefecture’s greatest assignment, one that cannot be sidestepped.

Running alongside that assignment is the Hokuriku Shinkansen’s Kanazawa–Tsuruga extension, which opened in March 2024. Two new stations, Komatsu and Kaga Onsen, were built within the prefecture, and the Development Bank of Japan estimates an annual economic ripple effect of about ¥27.9 billion within Ishikawa. This is not a concept but an already-realized upside, and it is also counted on as a driving force for reconstruction in the disaster areas. Note that the section west of Tsuruga (the extension to Shin-Osaka) is at the stage of an ongoing environmental assessment along the Obama–Kyoto route, and the start of construction is undetermined—I read these at differing degrees of certainty.

Whereas the benefit of the bullet train works along the line on the Kaga side, the recovery from the earthquake and the population outflow concentrate in Noto—within the same prefecture, the direction the forces head differs. A stable foundation for daily life, an already-realized bullet train, Noto’s recovery as the greatest assignment, and the weight of demographics. I do not round these four into one; I write them in separate sections by the Kaga side, the Noto side, and the time axis. The single word “Ishikawa” becomes, on the Kaga side, a story of tailwind, and on the Noto side, a story of recovery—keeping that difference intact as I keep reading is the minimum discipline for not lumping this prefecture together carelessly. The individual schedules, plans, and degrees of certainty can be lined up one by one in the development roadmap at the bottom of the page.