[2] Per Japanese census data,[3] the population of Dōshi has gradually decreased over the past 70 years.

During the Edo period, all of Kai Province was tenryō territory under direct control of the Tokugawa shogunate.

With the establishment of the modern municipalities system in the early Meiji period in 1889, the village of Dōshi was created in Minamitsuru District, Yamanashi Prefecture.

From 1897, the Dōshigawa River, which runs through the village, was designated as a primary source of water for the growing city of Yokohama.

However, the petition was rejected by the Yamanashi Prefectural Assembly, citing complications over a cross-prefectural merger and issues with the village becoming an exclave of the Yokohama metropolis.