Population and economy of local towns in early modern Japan

这项研究考察了近代早期日本的经济和人口状况。我们把明治初期(19世纪70年代和80年代)纳入我们的范围，因为我们在明治时代之前没有全国人口统计数据，但明治维新之后，政府进行了人口登记并公布了结果。我们可以首先获得城市人口的大体情况。明治初年，日本尚未完全工业化或城市化，德川时代的光环依然存在。利用1884年的城市人口统计数据，我们可以绘制出该地区社会经济发展程度的等级-规模分布。卡罗尔·史密斯教授认为，如果人口的点状是头重脚轻的，那么政治权威就很强，一个或几个大城市在该地区占主导地位(城市至上)。如果分布在两侧对数图上呈直线，则社会经济发展清晰(正态型)。如果分布接近平坦，则发育不充分(早产型)。以明治日本为例，其外形“正常”。本研究利用近代日本早期城镇的微观数据，选取了如下四个城镇：1.小山(Mutsu)、2.麒麟(Kozuke)、3.大石镇(Owari)、4.高前(Harima)。由于这些城镇具有地方商业和工业的特点，当由政治权力维持的大城市的人口减少时，人口就会增加。但原始数据的格式并不常见，很难进行比较分析。有些城镇可以给我们人口指数的大致情况，但有些城镇只能提供人口迁移的情况。整体来看，城市墓地效应不是很强，但每个城镇的人口增长都是由周围农村的大规模迁移带来的。

This study examines the economy and population in early modern Japan. We included the early Meiji period (1870s and 1880s) to our scope, since we have no national population statistics before Meiji era, but after the Meiji Restoration, the government carried out population registration and published the results. We can first obtain the general picture of urban population. In the early Meiji era, Japan was not entirely industrialized or urbanized, so that the spectrum of Tokugawa Era existed still. Utilizing the urban population statistics in 1884, we can draw the rank-size distribution, by which the degree of social and economic development of the area will be settled.Professor Carol Smith argued that if the shape of dotting of population was top-heavy, the political authority was very strong and one or a few large cities were predominant in the area (urban primacy). If the distribution takes a straight line on the both sides logarithms graph, the social and economic development was clear (normal type). If the distribution was nearly flat, the development was not enough (premature type). The Meiji Japan's case, the shape was ‘normal.',The study utilizing the micro data of towns in early modern Japan, we took following four towns.1.Koriyama (Mutsu Province), 2.Kiryu (Kozuke Province), 3.Okoshi (Owari Province), and 4.Takasago (Harima Province). As these towns had local commercial and industrial characteristics, the population grew when the population of large cities, which were maintained by political power, was declined. But the format of the original data was not common, it was difficult to analyze them comparatively. Some town can give us the general picture of the demographic indices but some one only migration. As a whole, the ‘urban graveyard effect' was not so strong, but population growth of each towns was brought from a large scale of migration from surrounding countryside.