Abstract
In this paper, the growth process of 22 cities in Kyushu region through the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa era is discussed. The main purpose is to analyze the situation in which a city with its functions, affected by many other cities forming the region, could realize its substantial growth.
To sum up, in Kyshu region, some historical central place cities have grown steadily since the Meiji era and selected ones, Fukuoka for example, showed accelerated growth in recent 20 years. Meanwhile, other central place cities realized relatively low growth because of the nearby larger central place cities which expanded the area of its influence gradually. Another group of newlyrisen cities (so called Shinko-toshi) grew rapidly through industrial revolution in Japan with its profitable location and resonrce endowment compared with other regions. But in post war period, especially since 1950s, these newly-risen cities reduced their growth rate and many of them declined substantially, losing merit so far as the changed national industrial structure concerned.
