This paper is intended to be a summary of the results obtained from the historico-geographical survey of ancient cities and traffic roads in South Kyushu, on which we have not seen any reports as yet.
The earliest historical record of principal roads in ancient Japan dates back to 646 A. D. in the “Taika Reformation” documents. It still remains unclarified, however, to what regions in the ancient Japanese islands the roads were extended, on what scale each station was established, and what practical functions it had.
The names of the stations which were set up over the country in those days can be obtained from the historical document “Engishiki, ” edited c. 927 A. D. The record shows that the roads used to run from Nara or Kyoto, both being the ancient capitals of Japan, to all provinces, just in the same way as the principal roads of the ancient Roman Empire radiated to its provinces from the capital Rome. It is also apparent from “Engishiki” that stations of those days were distributed at intervals of 16-20km. along the road.
The present writer has made a historico-geographical research on the 16 sites of stations in the ancient Hyuga province of Kyushu Island. The method adopted in this research was to investigate the names of old local places, “Koaza, ” on cadastral maps and then to observe the topography of the sites of stations.
There have been evidences clear enough to indicate the following three points:
First, it seems that the original forms of the two national roads in Kyushu today, Road No. 10 running along the coast of the Hyuga Sea and No. 268 crossing the Kyushu mountains from east to west, can be traced back to ancient times. Secondly, present Nobeoka, Miyazaki, and Kobayashi in Miyazaki Prefecture are supposed to have originated from sites of ancient stations. Lastly, it has become evident that the central place of the day was situated at Saito City of present day, where there used to be a political center in the age of “Kofun” culture around the 3rd and 4th centuries, and where an ancient provincial capital called “Kokufu” is known to have been built in the 7th century.

View full abstract

The object of this paper is to clarify the factors of the spatial dispersion of affor-estation by simulation analysis. Two small areas which belong to two hamlets, Honmodani and Sakamotogawa, of Yusuhara-mura in southwestern part of the Shikoku mountainous region, were chosen for this study. The inhabitants of Honmodani are generally composed of smaller landowners and those of Sakamotogawa larger ones.
Most of these two areas had been utilized for shifting cultivation and later for the cultivation of “mitsumata” (Edgewortia papyrfera) which was traditionally used for the production of Japanese paper until 1955. After World War II, afforestation has been extended in these areas, the change of which is shown in Figs. 3 and 11.
In the application of simulation, a grid composed of 250 meter square meshes was overlaid and a probability field was prepared in each mesh as shown in Figs. 6 and 8. This probability field is based on the correlation between the relative number of the places of afforestation and the distance from the place of settlement or the places of afforestation distributed in the previous periods. So, Monte Carlo simulation is to be operated on this probability field.
The results obtained are as follows:
1. In the area of I-Ionmodani, the trend of aforestation can be divided into four periods based on Fig. 3. In the 1st period, the distribution of actual output of affor-esta.tion is shown in Fig. 4-A and its simulation in Fig. 4-B. Spatial dispersion in this period is mainly related to the distance from the settlement. In the 2nd period, the distribution of actual output is shown in Fig. 5-A and its simulation in Fig. 5-B. From it, it is admitted that the afforestation in this period is related to the distance from the places of afforestation located in the previous period like the Markov chain. In the 3rd period, in which a greater part of the area was covered by afforestation, the actual and its simulated outputs are shown in Fig. 7-A, B. Spatial dispersion in this period is related to the distance from the places of afforestation located in the 1 st and 2nd periods like the cases of higher-order Markov chain. The actual and simu-lated outputs in the last period are shown in Fig. 9-A, B. In this period, it is also admitted that the spatial dispersion is based on the distance from the places of affor-estation distributed in the previous period. Through each period, a little differences between the distribution of actual output and simulated output are admitted. This is due to the distribution of the forest lands of the larger land possessors in this area.
2. In the area of Sakamotogawa, the trend of afforestation can be divided into three periods based on Fig. 11. The distribution of actual and its simulated outputs, in the 1 st and 2nd periods, are shown in Fig. 12-A, B and Fig. 13-A, B. Through these periods, it is admitted that the distribution of the places of afforestation is related to the distance from the settlement in the 1 st period, and the places of afforestation formed in the previous period in the 2nd period. But, in the 2nd period, contrary to the other periods, the increasing correlation between the ratio of the number of the places of afforestation and its distance from the places of afforestation formed in the previous period is admitted. This is due to the stability of the economic base of the farmers with larger forest lands and cultivated fields in this area. In the last period, the places of aforestation cover the area all over.
3. Thus, it is understood that the most important factor is the distance from the settlement in the 1st stage and from the places of the aforestation in the later stages, and the secondary factor is the distribution of forestland possessed by each landowner.

View full abstract

Much has been discussed on the “U-turn movement” of Japanese population, but each of those engaged in the discussion uses the term “U-turn” in different meaning. It must be functional for our discussion to restrict the usage of this term to mean what was reported by T. Kuroda, who was the first to read a paper at the academic meeting concerning this new trait of Japanese population movement. He pointed out that during 1960s the population concentration into metropolitan districts from non-metro-politan areas was slightly decreasing, while the population moving fromm metropolitan to non-metropolitan regions was remarkably increasing.
Although the expression is literary, on the analogy of a motorcar's “U-turn” move-ment, the recent tendency reported by him can be called “U-turn” movement of Japa-nese population movement, which changed its population-movement pattern from concentration type to decentralization type. Nothing but the tendency above mentioned was the original meaning of the term “U-turn” movement of Japanese population.
Soon after the presentation of the paper concerning the above fact, Kuroda was criticized by A. Ono, who insisted that the new tendency Kuroda pointed out did not mean so remarkably a change in the population movement pattern according to the calculation of X2 by Quo. But it seemed to me that the re-examination by Ono was not completely adequate, because it contained some misunderstandings on Kuroda's logical construction. I myself re-calculated Kuroda's method as truly as I could and found that the criticism was disagreeable and that the contribution of Kuroda was to be highly estimated.
The discussion-points briefly above followed were what I commented when I wrote a paper in Japanese Sociological Review, Vol. 22, No. 2. My paper introduced new dis-cussions, which contained not only sociological but also geographical issues. It might be my duty to review those new discussions and to remove other types of misunderstand-ings on “U-turn movement” of Japanese population.
The first thing I should point out is that there are some critics who cannot distinguish what was said by Kuroda from what was said by K. Shimizu, K. Hattori, and H. Futagami. The concept “Charm (Gravitation) of Cities” offered by Shimizu and Hattori has a large concern with population movement indeed, but neither of the two professors was the original reporter of “U-turn movement”. Even the contributions of Futagami, who attempted to examine “U-turn movement” by factor analysis, and who, on the process of his factor analysis, applied the idea “Chasm” to the study of population movement, is impossible to be regarded on the same level as Kuroda, the original reporter.
It is unfair to make up willfully another theoretical system putting together some fragments of the words of Kuroda, Shimizu, Hattori, Futagami and others, and to criticize this seemingly new but not really existing theory.
Another type of unfair criticism is as follows. Some critics are suspicious whether Kuroda is confusing “U-turn movement” with “doughnut-pattern movement” or not. That is, according to the critics, Kuroda, might have mistaken the population movement between the “loop” and the satellite cities forr the movement between metropolitan district and non-metropolitan area. But such a criticism is inadequate. A precice examination of the tables in Kuroda's paper evidences that it was impossible for Kuroda to miscount such a kind of miscounting, because the tables were of a sort that never did contain any data concerning the movement between the centre of metropolis and its outskirts.
Such are the points that have been disputed. I am sure that most of the misunderstandings might have been removed.
But, still a question is left.

View full abstract

The economic difference between cities and remote islands in Japan has been remarkably enlarged recently since the country entered the period of a high-degree economic growth. Incidentally, the agriculture in remote islands faced a very serious situation either of negligence of cultivation or of extensive agriculture. The author has investigated the peculier characteristics of the agriculture in such remote islands where a trend to shift into recreational places is going on, taking an example of Honson district in Niijima Island, Izu.
As a result of his investigation, the author learned the fact as follows: the selfsustaining agriculture which was focused on the traditional cultivation of sweet potatoes and wheat has transferred itself to the growing of vegetables which were originally cultivated for the purpose of home consumption. This is primarily due to the increase of Minshuku or home-inns, largely caused by the shortage of labor force which has been absorbed into other industries.
This can be said to be “self-support agriculture” from the fact that these vegetables are consumed within the island, and at the same time, it is regarded as “commercial agriculture” when we see the fact that they are mainly consumed by tourists. In general, we cannot overlook the devastation of the lands accelerated by the negligence of cultivation in the island as well.

View full abstract