This is mainly the life history of the village since her birth two hundred and sixty years ago. Her history, mainly about the land division with the land settlement, tells us very interestingly and exactly the meaning of time and ideal of mankind.
Kamitome, 25km north west to Tokyo, was opened 1696 as one of triplet villages by the lord of Kawagoe who had his castle 15km to the north from there. His land practices for emigrants of Kamitome and two others which are shown on Fig. 7 and 8 were one of perfectly idealized types of the day, though some irregularities resulted from the inaccuracy of instruments.
The size of given holdings which are shown for each family farm on Fig. 8 by my calculation and by lord's servants (in bracket) were the largest among villages in Japanese Homeland. The centripetal manner of distributing land in which dwellings were located at the same end or the middle of their ribbon-like farms are caused by the central temple which was erected by the lord for his brother to serve as the chief priest.
Thus, farmhouses increased from 91 in 1696 (Fig. 8) to 134 in 1876 (Fig. 11) and to 229 in 1954 (Fig. 12 and 1) including 15 shops and others (side map of Fig.12). The expansion of the settlement from the pure linear style to several directions took place as the result.
During the time the fragmentation of holdings was almostly inevitable. In 1696 there were 91 holdings which became 227 fragments in 1876 and 1159 in 1954 (incomplete in area). Villagers were successful at any rate in keeping their farmlands behind their residences until recently. So, on Fig. 9 (1876), though some of them were so narrow in width as 10 meters against to 750 meters in length, we find only four ribbons were cut in the middle.
After the Second World War big change took place. By the practice of the land reform law which made all tenant farmers independent and the coercive opening of some forest as field, very few farms are left with the original length (Fig. 10 and 13).
Same phenomena were seen at two senior villages east to Kamitome, while the circumstances were different at the village two centuries ahead to Kamitome in West Japan (Fig. 16), whose increased population inflated to the rear as village form and fragmented their field toward rectangular direction long before the Great War.
Fig. 4 and 5 show the rapid developmont of land division of the village ‘Ti i pai chi shih erh hao ching (No. 172 Quadrat), Ko shan province, Northern Manchuria (1913-1935), which has some similarities and differences with Kamitome.
Fig. 2 is the land division development at Estancia Pirovano, Pampa (1875-1930), by Em. Prof. R. S. Platt Chicago, which is comparable with Fig. 6 in East Hokkaido (1910-1955) in its rectangular system etc. On Fig. 15 we see the development of the land division and the settlement of the former military village in Middle Hokkaido as young Kamitome.

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The Zyoban coal field is about 200km north-east of Tokyo. Though the coal is low-caloric bituminous one, the field is the nearest to the Tokyo-Yokohama manufacturing region, one of the largest coal markets in Japan. They produced 4.29 million tons of coal in 1957, about 8 per cent of the total coal production of Japan, and about 28, 000 coal workers are engaged in the coal industry in the field. The coal workers have increased through the development of the coal industry in this field since about 1890 and have been largely responsible for profound changes in the structure of the labor force and in the social and economic structure over the last half a century.
The writer has studied: (1) Distribution of the coal workers; (2) Relations between colliery settlements and regionality of the coal field; (3) Recruitment (employment and dismissal) and mobility of the coal workers. The results are as follows.
(1) About 57 per cent of the 28, 000 coal workers are concentrated in the northern district of Iwaki, one of the four regions of the field which is the center of coal production in the Zyoban coal field because of the best geologic conditions of coal measures for mining. Therefore, the influences of the mining activity are most clearly revealed in this region. Next is Taga District which has 31 per cent of the total workers. The remaining 12 per cent is in two other districts (Fig. 7). Sixty-one per cent of the number of the total coal workers is employed in 4 collieries each of which has over 1, 000 workers; 20 per cent is in 9 collieries each of which has 1, 000-503 workers; 13 per cent is in 21 collieries each of which has 560-100 workers and 6 per cent in 54 collieries each of which has under 100 workers. The majority of coal workers are concentrated in the large collieries.
(2) Many workers and their families increase the density of population in these areas. Colliery settlements, especially workers houses, occupy vast tracts of land and they are largely responsible for the changing of the farming region into the characteristic landscape of the coal field. Bus routes, the frequence of bus service, density of population and types of occupations in the field are also clearly under the influence of the location of colliery settlements (Fig. 2). For example, the average density of population in the nothern part of Iwaki is 800 persons per one square kilometer to 105 persons per one square kilometer in the neighbouring area.
(3) From 60 to 70 per cent of the total workers come from the cities, towns and villages of the Zyoban coal field. The others come from the villages of Tohoku and the Kanto Region, and Niigata Prefecture. Generally speaking, coal labor is not liked by people as an occupation, but they are compelled to engage in it, because they find no other occupations in the field except agriculture. Then the mobility of coal workers is very large (ratio of the mobility is from 30 to 60 per cent) because of poor labor conditions and lower wages. A number of workers left the colliery within half a year. The moa bility of coal workers is much larger than the workers of other industries, but those who change occupations are few. Most of them wander from one colliery to another in the Zyoban coal field. The ratio of these “Wandering Miners” including the coal workers of small collieries is much higher than in large ones. This is due to the instability of the small collieries. Then the number of workers who transfer from one small colliery to another is much larger than the number who transfer from a large colliery to a small one or to another large one.

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