Chikusa Ward: Walking the Strata of the Ward Traversed by the Higashiyama Line
For readers living in Nagoya who have lumped Chikusa Ward together as a 'university town' or an 'affluent residential area.' I believe readers with little connection to Nagoya will also find this an open and engaging attempt to read the city as 'strata.' Once you finish reading, you will see that this ward, which the Higashiyama subway line cuts through in a straight line, has different faces in Imaike, Motoyama, Kakuozan, and Hoshigaoka, and that beneath your feet lie layers of post-war processing: the sites of former munitions factories and consolidated cemeteries.
There is one question.Is Chikusa Ward a place that can be grouped together as a single ward?
The series 'Nagoya 16 Wards,' Episode 2. In Episode 1, I wrote that 'administrative wards are legally thin, and they become one's own ward within the consciousness of the people who live there.' This is an episode where I revisit that question in the first ward.
What is Chikusa Ward?
A ward that the Higashiyama subway line cuts through in a straight line from west to east, with seven stations: Chikusa, Imaike, Ikeshita, Kakuozan, Motoyama, Higashiyama Koen, and Hoshigaoka. This is the outline of Chikusa Ward, which is placed at the top of the official order of Nagoya's 16 wards.
Here is the basic data.
Population: 173,481 (as of May 1, 2026, official Nagoya City estimate)
Number of households: 97,686 households
Area: 18.18 km²
Population density: approx. 9,540 people/km²
Adjacent wards: 6 wards including Higashi, Naka, Showa, Tempaku, Meito, and Moriyama
Ward number: 23101 (the lowest number among the 16 wards)
As I wrote in the first episode, the outline of a ward is not fixed by law, but has moved through annexations and separations. The current shape of Chikusa Ward is no exception.
The streets of Chikusa Ward—The Higashiyama Line creates the ward
I will trace the expressions of the ward from west to east in the order of the Higashiyama subway line stations.
Chikusa Station/Imaike—Prosperity and Redevelopment
At the western end of the ward, where the JR Chuo Line and the Higashiyama subway line intersect,Chikusa Station has 44,190 passengers per day (FY2023, 20th in the city). Here, a 48-story, approximately 190m tall, 450-unit tower apartment building called the '(tentative name) Chikusa Station Front Project' is planned. The developer is Sekisui House. Once completed, it is expected to be the tallest building in Nagoya City; demolition began in April 2023, and as of September 2025, an environmental consideration document for the planning stage has been published.
One station east from there,Imaike is a bustling district where the Higashiyama and Sakuradori subway lines intersect. The number of passengers is 41,892 per day (22nd). Music venues that have been operating for over 40 years, such as the live houseHUCK FINN (capacity 200), which has been around since 1981, as well asTokuzo,BOTTOM LINE from 1998, have been functioning. It is a settled theory that you cannot talk about Nagoya's punk rock scene without mentioning Imaike.
Ikeshita/Kakuozan—The boundary between the approach and the residential area
Ikeshita Station (23,870 passengers/day, 47th) is said to derive its name from the fact that it was the bottom of the 'Mamushigaike' pond until the Taisho era.
The next stop, Kakuozan, is known for the approach to Kakuozan Nittai-ji Temple. Founded in 1904 (Meiji 37), Nittai-ji is the only non-denominational temple in Japan, housing the true relics of the Buddha gifted by King Rama V of Siam. The temple is managed by 19 different sects on a three-year rotating basis, and on the 21st of every month, about 100 stalls line the temple grounds for the festival. This means the approach culture has been thriving for over 120 years.
The Kakuozan Apartment, which had been a symbol of the 2000s cafe culture in Kakuozan, closed its doors on March 21, 2025, due to the aging of the building. The future of the site remains uncertain. The number of passengers at Kakuozan Station is 19,732 per day (based on 2018 data; it is not listed in the 2023 rankings).
Motoyama: The Core of Academia
Motoyama Station is the intersection of the Higashiyama and Meijo subway lines, with 27,450 passengers per day (ranked 39th). It is the closest station to Nagoya University's Higashiyama Campus and Aichi Gakuin University's Kusumoto Campus. Nagoya University (Furo-cho, Chikusa Ward) has 9,524 undergraduate students, 6,435 graduate students, and 2,312 full-time faculty members. The area around Motoyama feels dominated by an atmosphere of research and academia, distinct from the temple culture of Kakuozan or the bustling nature of Imaike.
Higashiyama Koen and Hoshigaoka: The Eastern Edge
Higashiyama Koen Station (16,466 passengers per day, 2018 data) is the closest station to the Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens and the Higashiyama Sky Tower. The zoo and botanical gardens opened on March 24, 1937, cover 59.58 hectares, and welcomed 2.82 million visitors in 2024, making it the second-largest public zoo in Japan after Ueno. The Sky Tower is a 134-meter observation tower that opened in 1989 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Nagoya's municipal system.
And at the eastern end of the ward, the terminus on the Chikusa Ward side of the Higashiyama subway line is Hoshigaoka (officially written as "Hoshigaoka"). The number of passengers is 44,602 per day (ranked 19th), the highest in the ward. Centered around Hoshigaoka Terrace and Sugiyama Jogakuen, the place name "Hoshigaoka" itself was named by the Housing Corporation in 1955 as "the hill closest to the stars, located at the highest point in the city." The ward office is located at 103 Hoshigaoka-yamate at this eastern edge.
Within a single ward, you have bustling streets, temple approaches, academia, residential areas, a zoo and botanical garden, and plans for redevelopment with high-rise condominiums, all lined up along the single line of the Higashiyama Line. I see this as the outline of Chikusa Ward.
The History of Chikusa Ward: Three Territorial Shifts
The boundaries of Chikusa Ward have shifted significantly three times over the past 90 years.
The first was on October 1, 1937 (Showa 12), when Nagoya City expanded to a 10-ward system. Chikusa Ward was born by separating the "former Chikusa-cho" and "former Higashiyama-mura" from the former Higashi Ward. "Chikusa" is considered an auspicious name meaning "many varieties."
The second was in 1955. The ward's territory expanded significantly to the east by incorporating Inoko-mura, Aichi-gun. The naming of Hoshigaoka by the Housing Corporation in that same year, 1955, coincides with this period of annexation.
The third was on February 1, 1975 (Showa 50). Most of the former Inoko-mura separated and became Meito Ward, and at the same time, a portion of Ueda, Tenpaku-cho, Showa Ward was incorporated. This is the current outline of Chikusa Ward, which has only about 50 years of history.
The phrase "16 wards that haven't changed in 50 years," which I wrote about in the first episode, requires a caveat. While the framework of the 16 wards itself has not changed since 1975, the shape of Chikusa Ward was also solidified in 1975. Until half a century ago, it seems Chikusa Ward was a considerably larger ward than it is now.
The fact that the ward office is located at the eastern edge in Hoshigaoka is likely a remnant of this annexation and separation. If the location was determined based on the center of gravity including the former Inoko-mura area before 1975, it is natural that it appears shifted to the east when viewed within the current boundaries.
Characteristics of Chikusa Ward Residents
There is a statement on a statistics website that the average annual income is 5.97 million yen, ranking it 7th out of 69 municipalities in Aichi Prefecture (since the source is a private statistics site, it is safer to treat this as a reference value). It would not be surprising to see it counted among the top group of "educational + wealthy + residential" areas among the 16 wards of Nagoya City.
However, it might not be accurate to write that "Chikusa Ward = uniformly wealthy." The ward appears to be divided into at least three layers.
The bustling Imaike layer: A layer of live music venues and drinking districts
The business and redevelopment layer in front of Chikusa Station: The business district around the station and the 190m high-rise condominium to be built
The Residential and Educational Strata of Kakuozan, Motoyama, and Hoshigaoka: The long-established residential areas along the approach to the temple, and the residential areas near universities and schools
The ratio of the student population is also distinctive. Nagoya University, Sugiyama Jogakuen University, and Aichi Gakuin University alone have over 20,000 students. This means that more than 10% of the ward's 173,000 residents are students. However, since many students are transients who do not transfer their resident registration, they should likely be treated as a separate group from the "residents."
It might be easier to interpret this ward by viewing it as a place where multiple towns coexist.
Reflections as a Nagoya Person—The Ward Along the Higashiyama Line, and the Strata Beneath Its Feet
Having written this much, one image comes to mind. It is the image of Chikusa Ward as a ward where a single line—the Higashiyama Subway Line—skewers prosperity, temple approaches, academia, residential areas, the zoo and botanical gardens, and redevelopment.
However, I feel that image alone is insufficient. Because beneath the horizontal map connecting the Higashiyama Line stations, there are vertical strata.
Chikusa Park is a park located in Wakamizu 1-chome, Chikusa Ward, measuring approximately 200m east-west by 300m north-south, but it was originally the site of the Nagoya Army Arsenal Chikusa Factory, established in 1919. It is said that more than 69 staff members were killed in three air raids on March 25, April 7, and June 26, 1945. A concrete wall bearing bullet marks from that time is still preserved in the southwest of the park.
Heiwa Park is an area that spans from the eastern edge of Chikusa Ward to Meito Ward. Following the post-war reconstruction land readjustment that began in 1947, approximately 187,000 graves (actual count: 187,405) from 278 cemeteries within the city were consolidated and relocated to this 147-hectare site. The project was completed in 1957. If you walk a little east from the residential areas of Kakuozan and Hoshigaoka, you find yourself not in a town of temples or a town of sects, but in a functional graveyard consolidation site.
The quiet and affluent residential areas of Chikusa Ward are built upon the post-war processing of munitions factories and graveyard consolidation sites. When you look at the closing of the Kakuozan Apartments, the 190m-tall tower mansion project in front of Chikusa Station, and the current figure of 2.82 million annual visitors to the Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens alongside these vertical layers, Chikusa Ward looks quite different.
At the beginning, I posed the question, "Is Chikusa Ward a place that can be grouped together as a single ward?" My answer is, "It cannot be grouped; reading it as a collection of multiple towns and strata is closer to the actual feel of Chikusa Ward." However, there must be other ways of looking at it. For example, some might read it as, "Chikusa Ward is indeed the Higashiyama Line itself, and the strata are independent as strata." As I wrote in the first episode, a ward becomes "one's own ward" within the consciousness of the people who live there. Depending on which station the reader gets off at and which layer they walk through, the way this ward is perceived will change.
The third episode of this series will walk through Higashi Ward, which is adjacent to Chikusa Ward. Chikusa Ward, newly established in 1937, and Higashi Ward, one of the first four wards of Nagoya City in 1908. I plan to make this an episode that considers the contrast between the 'new ward' and the 'oldest ward' through the townscapes that spread out to the northeast of Nagoya Castle.
When you walked through Chikusa Ward, which layer left the strongest impression on you? From here on, this is a series I want to think about together with the readers.