The number of apprentice geisha, who are the poster children of the hanamachi, decreased to less than twenty at one point, but recently. the number has been gradually increasing and there are said to be a little less than thirty apprentice geisha today.
この町のシンボルというべき舞妓も一時は20人以下へと落ち込んでいたが、近年徐々に回復し、現在は30人弱にまで増えていると言われる。