This paper examines the nature of the economic base of City of Sakata in the middle age of the Meiji Era, through an analysis on the income-sources of the upper brackets in income.
Sakata was known all over the country as a famous port of the districts along the shore of the Sea of Japan, together with Tsutizaki, Niigata, Fusiki, Mikuni, Tsuruga, Sakai and so on. However, owing to the Meiji Restoration, the depression of 1880s and the changes of transportation system around Sakata, Sakata was also forced to transfer from commercial city.
Now then, 78 peoples in the upper brackets of income in Sakata who have a yearly income of 300 yen and over in 1895, have the income of 57.2% deriving from the tenant land to total income. The income ratio from holdings of tenant land becomes increasingly from 13.2% in the stratum of 300-499 yen, 32.2% of 500-749 yen, 42.6% in 750-999 yen, 53.2% in 1, 000-1, 999 yen, 60.3% in 2, 000-2, 999 yen, to 89.1% in 3, 000-9, 999 yen. Even the stratum in 10, 000 yen and over which has a considerable income from stocks and bonds, the ratio is 67.4%. In contrast to this, the income ratio from primary trades is only about 10%. The stratum which depends upon an income from the trades, is 300-499 yen in income. In the influentially commercial and industrial traders in Sakata with incomes of 1, 000-1, 999 yen, the income ratio obtained from trades is only about 20%. Namely, the rich peoples of Sakata, with few exceptions, are landowner of tenant land. Is it true that Sakata is a commmercial city?
Now, 19 of 26 rich men who have a yearly income from land of 300 yen and over in 1895, had already rice fields of about 10 chobu (≈10ha) and over in 1885. And, the total area of 25 landowners who had rice fields of about 10 chobu (≈10ha) and over in 1885, became an increase of area by 1.94 in rice field from 1884 to 1885. Taking all things into consideration as to facts of the tenant land, it is possible to estimate that the income of 300 yen obtained from holdings of tenant land in 1895, derives from about 12 chobu (≈12ha) in rice field.
In conclutlon, Sakata was already not a city which was simply composed of the income of trades, but the city that depends chiefly on enormous wealth from the tenant land and interests. The nature of parastic monemaking, the higher of urban residents he is, the more he depends, took simultaneously upon itself the responsibility to check the development of Sakata to the industrial city.

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This paper examines the ways in which pharmaceutical product wholesalers have adapted themselves to the progress in information technology, and analyzes the consequent functional division and locational change among their establishments in Tohoku Region. Pharmaceutical product wholesalers have reorganized the existing distribution system through informatization, facing the revision of official standard prices for medicines and deregulation of their distribution.
As for locational change of firms caused by improvement in the information network, the separation of trade information flow and goods delivery has shifted the latter function from the core of the urban centers to their suburban areas. Moreover, the intra-firm separation of the OTC (over-the-counter) and prescription medicine sector has led to locational reorganization of branch offices. First, because of the informatization in the online ordering system, the delivery centers and branch offices have been centralized in the OTC sector whose price has been decontrolled, and which is usually located in the center of prefecture. Second, the prescription medicine sector needs the advanced transmission functions of commodity information and rapid delivery. In this sector, importance is still attached to field activities relying on face-to-face contact. Then, the location of branch offices has not changed and continued to be oriented toward the core of the trade territory which minimizes the aggregated time distance to all possible locations within the territory. In this way, the distribution system has been reconstructed to suit for each commodity. In addition, merger of firms adapting to informatization has resulted in the expansion of trade areas and consequent locational reorganization of branch offices.
In relation to the prescription medicine sector, especially in the retail sub-sector at the final stage of the distribution, it is possible that the form of business and supply channel of commodities have been modified by the increase in the number of pharmacy chains in recent years. However, because this article aimed at the wholesalers which were at the middle stage of the distribution, it could not grasp the spatial structure stretching from production to consumption. Thus, it remains to be seen how the consequent new forms of retail trade would change the entire distribution structure.

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