This study categorised the fishery districts in Iwate Prefecture, which were severely damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake, using data on agriculture and fishery. Subsequently, changes in the industrial structure of coastal rural areas before and after the earthquake were clarified through an examination of both agriculture and fisheries at the same time. Using cluster analysis, district categories were classified into three cluster types (small-scale primary industry, large-scale primary industry and fishery-dominated clusters) before the earthquake and a fourth cluster (the three aforementioned clusters plus high population density clusters) after the earthquake. The industrial structure’s most significant change was in fishery-dominated clusters before the earthquake. After the earthquake, clusters with the characteristics of a high population density and small industries emerged. The change in the degree of population decline indicates that the loss of population has not accelerated in the districts where agriculture and fishery have been rebuilt in a balanced manner, although the scale may be either small or large. This finding suggests that both agriculture and fishery are important in coastal rural areas, just as the two were before the earthquake.

In this study, we clarified the impact of the pandemic on the daily lives of rural Japanese residents who experienced the pandemic and on their attitudes toward relationships with people in the broader world. From July to August 2021, an anonymous questionnaire survey was conducted in three rural and fishing community districts (Oshio, Sugane, and Ozushima) in Shunan City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, among the residents of each district. We found that the survey respondents had decreased their frequency of engaging in activities that were not essential to daily life. During the pandemic, people consciously avoided visitors from outside their districts, but after the pandemic restrictions were lifted, many people welcomed visitors the same way they had before the pandemic; indeed, people welcomed migrants who would increase their populations. As long as COVID-19 infections are under control, residents of the three districts have one thing in common: they want to interact with people outside their districts. It is necessary to consider how to continue community activities under the pandemic so that rural Japanese citizens can maintain interactions with the outside world after the pandemic.