CONCENTRATION OF BRANCH OFFICES IN TOYAMA CITY

Abstract

Toyama ranks at a relatively high position among the cities of Japan concerning the concentration of branch offices (Fig. 1). And that, the control areas of the branch offices which locate in Toyama cover mainly three prefectures in Hokuriku District (Fig. 2). The city has been termed as a sub-regional central city by K. Abe (1973), but there still remains some problems. The branch offices, which fall in the industrial group classification for the kinds of their head offices, are to be classified mainly as manufacturing industries. Of these manufacturing industries, however, such producer goods as iron and steel, non-ferrous metals, fabricated metal products, and glass, stone and clay products are relatively many in Toyama ; but the consumer goods show a relatively low ratio (Fig. 3). This apparent-ly reflects the fact that the branches in Toyama city are combined with the Toyama industrial district or with an electric power company and a maker of tools whose head offices are found in Toyama. Cities with the control branches of the branches in Toyama are located in Nagoya and Kanazawa for the greater part, but some of them are in Osaka and Niigata. How-ever, 14 control branches of the property insurance companies out of the total of 16 are in IP anazawa. After all, the branches in Toyama take a position which make up for branches in Nagoya, but they are a competitive relation with those of Kanazawa. The location of their head offices is, most of all, found either in Kanazawa or Toyama prefecture (excluding Toyama city) and shows a localism clearly. Control areas of branch offices are not always concordant with administractive districts. On this point, the control areas of the branches in Toyama are found within the limits of Imajo in Fukui prefecture, Takayama basin in Gifu pref., and Joetsu city in Niigata pref. Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui prefectures are quite limited in areal scope. The total area of the three prefectures altogether is about equal to that of Niigata prefecture, and even the total population of the three prefectures differes little from that of Niigata pref. Consequently, as to the size of the control area of a branch office, still remains some problem and it is necessary to take the actual sizes of area and population into consideration, not simply by considerning the number of prefectures which are covered by the control area.