This paper aims to clarify the development process of a frontier urban settlement from its beginning with special reference to its changes in urban function. Takikawa is a central city with 50, 000 inhabitants in the Naka-Sorachi Region where agriculture (rice) and mining (coal) form an inportant economic base. Takikawa was one of the earliest settlements in inland Hokkaido. It is blessed with water transportation, located at the junction of the Ishikari River and the Sorachi River. As a result of this study, it was discerned that there are three stages in the changes of urban function in Takikawa City. They are as follows:
1) First stage; gateway city (1886-97)
In 1886, Takikawa was selected as the base site for road construction of National Route 12 which started from this point. And in 1887, it was determined that a tonden-hei-son (pioneer column settlement) would be established here, which was completed in 1890. The first Takikawa settlements were at the river ports site, namely Sorachihuto and Shinhatoba. These two river ports had the depots in which the materials for construction workers were stored. Furthermore, the traders in Takikawa expanded their tributary areas to the Kamikawa Region, which is 50km away upstream along the Ishikari River, with the openning of the railroad in 1892. In this period, therefore, Takikawa had a gateway function which was connecting newly-opened inland frontier to the settled regions by transport and wholesaling.
2) Second stage; central place city (1898-1954)
In 1898, the railroad was extended up to Asahikawa, which took on the gateway funtion in the northern and eastern regions of Hokkaido. Accordingly, Takikawa lost its long distance trade with these regions and it began to put stress on retailing activities within the Naka-sorachi Region. Traders in Takikawa began to specialize in dealing instead of managing Aramono-sho (general stores) and they strengthened the controlling power over their tributary areas in the Naka-sorachi Region through collecting and distributing. The two river ports were abandoned and the commercial centers were built around the focus of the railroad station. In addition, several governmental offices controlling the Naka-sorachi Region were also opened in Takikawa. Takikawa functioned as the central place city in the Naka-sorachi Region throughout this period.
3) Third stage; economically advanced city (1955-)
Throughout this period, the most important change of commercial activities in Takikawa has been the agglomeration of branch offices of large enterprises from the outside. In 1985, these branch offices accounted for 43.7% of total wholesale sales and 39.7% of total retail sales in Takikawa. This indicates that there was a decline of local commercial capital which played the main role of central place function before.
To sum up the above discussion, there are three different functions in the course of urban development of frontier settlements: a gateway function for the first stage, a central place function for the second, and an agglomeration function for the last (Fig. 5).

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Modern newspapers, introduced into Japan in the 1870's, have diffused as one of the modern cultural elements throughout the country. From the human geographical aspect of modern newspapers, some geographers have remarked on the interaction between the newspaper system of publication places and circulation areas, and the central place system (Dickinson, R. E., 1947; Blotevogel, H. H., 1984 etc.). On the supposition that their ideas are also valid in the Japanese case, we can clarify the reformation process of modern spatial organization in Japan using the newspaper business as an indicator. This paper is composed of two sections. In the first section, the locational development process of newspaper publication is analyzed by comparison with the development process of the Japanese urban system. We examine the changing process of newspaper circulation spatial structure in the second section. In this case, our attention is directed to the core-periphery problem in newspaper circulation.
The following results were obtained in this inquiry:
First, we can find that there was a downward diffusional process of newspaper companies from the prefectural seats to the local centers. The concentration of political and economic functions and population had caused the prior location of newspaper companies in the prefectural seats. Until the 1930's, the number of newspapers had increased and publication places had diffused to the lower ranking centers. However, the distributional pattern wasn't uniform. Newspaper publication was concentrated in the Tokaido and Sanyodo regions, Nagano Prefecture, and Niigata Prefecture. On the prefectural scale, most of the newspapers were published at the prefectural seats. On a national scale, the capital of Japan, Tokyo, was the largest center of newspaper concentration. These situations at prefectural and national scales are explained by the importance of political functions concerning the location of newspapers. On the other hand, local community papers developed in some regions, for example in Nagano Prefecture. These contributed to the diffusion of newspapers in the lowest-class regions. However, in the 1940's many companies were integrated at the prefectural level under a national policy. So, the prefectural seats formed a monopoly of newspaper publication within each prefecture.
Second, there are some findings as to the sales wars between metropolitan newspapers and local papers in the regional markets. The metropolitan newspapers were established in Osaka or Tokyo and expanded their substantial circulation area to peripheral regions with the times. The share of metropolitan papers had been relatively high in regional markets at the time when newspapers were first introduced into Japan. However, the growth of local papers supported by local political parties gave the dominant position to the local papers in many prefectures. Some metropolitan papers had been circulated at provincial or sub-national scale since the 1890's. The frontiers of metropolitan papers advanced along the railway routes extending from Tokyo toward peripheral regions. But the share of these papers was dominant merely in the neighborhood area of publication place. From 1900 to the 1910's, these papers gained the priorities of market share in the Kanto Region or Kinki Region. It was in about 1940 that the national newspapers appeared with regard to their share in the regional markets. The formation of“national newspapers”implies the cultural centralization of Japan. However in the national newspaper integration process, “provincial”papers, which had priority of share in the provincial regions beyond their prefecture of publication, had grown in two regional metropolitan cities: Nagoya and Fukuoka. Nagoya and Fukuoka became secondary centers of newspaper publication. The provincial papers formed cultural subregions in the modern spatial organization process.

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the distribution of zenmai producing regions and their formation in the Tohoku region during the late Meiji and Taisho Eras. The young shoot of the fern zenmai (Osmunda japonica) is a traditional edible plant in Japan. Zenmai is distributed densely in the steep slopes of mountains which receive heavy snow. Therefore, zenmai of good quality has been produced in mountain villages of Tohoku facing the Japan Sea. The present writer identifies“zenmai settlements”where zenmai producing is economically important to village life.
This paper is based on 50 days field research in the mountain villages of Tohoku and Hokuriku from August 1981 to October 1984. The author conducted oral research among many old people, and gathered a lot of information from brokers and wholesalers about zenmai producing and circulation.
The results can be summarized as follows:
The zenmai producing region expanded from the late Meiji Era to the Taisho Era, and the zenmai settlements appeared in the snowy region facing the Japan Sea, They were distributed at the foot of the Moriyoshi Range, the Waga Range, the Kurikoma Range, the Chokai Range, the Asahi Range, the Iide Range, and the Echigo Range. (See Fig. 3.) This zenmai production brought people a secure income of a lot of money in about one month of each year. The custom of Maegari also arose, in which brokers advanced rice and other staples to villagers each fall in exchange for zenmai deliveries the next spring.
The formation of the zenmai producing regions was caused by two trends. First, village people close to the old producing regions spontaneously began to produce zenmai upon learning of its value. Second, brokers began to visit places distant from the old producing regions and advise village people to produce zenmai and sell it. These two behaviors were stimulated by the imcrease of demand as population grew in the cities, and by merchants' easy access to the remote mountain villages with the completion of the railroad network.
From the above, we can see how the mountain villages of Tohoku facing the Japan Sea, having difficult access to markets, were drawn into commodity production of zenmai, a light and expensive food formerly gathered in the wild. This pattern is similar to the development of specialized commercial production in conjunction with shifting cultivation in other remote and mountainous parts of Japan: wild tea in Kyushu, Mitsumata (for paper making) in Shikoku, and sericulture in Central Japan. This shows the development of a commercial economy through particular products in the remote mountain villages of Japan.

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