The Japan Times Archives enables users to easily search for articles on about 500,000 pages across 120 years, ranging from the inaugural issue in March 1897 to December 2017.
The Japan Times continues to report with perspectives absent from Japanese-language papers, as well as clear, contextual explanations for non-Japanese readers.
The database offers valuable historical content covering domestic and international politics, economy, culture, TV schedules, advertisements, weather forecasts and other useful topics.
The Japan Times Archives is used in universities, schools, libraries and research institutes in Japan and abroad.
Our content is an impactful addition to any PR materials and events celebrating your organizations'anniversaries. We are also able to provide proposals for packages on international PR strategies.
The Japan Times Archives is a database spanning the newspaper's inaugural issue in 1897 to the present. It enables users to search for and read individual pages of every issue published throughout those 120 years.
With support from former Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito and Keio University founder Yukichi Fukuzawa, The Japan Times was launched on March 22, 1897 as the first English-language newspaper published by a Japanese company. Sueji Yamada, a relative of Fukuzawa, was the newspaper's founding president and the editor in chief was Motosada Zumoto, a student of Fukuzawa’s, who was reputed to be Japan’s best English writer at the time.
About 30 years prior, there was another English-language newspaper published by British residents in Yokohama that was also called The Japan Times, but it merged with The Japan Mail in 1870 - an entity the new Japan Times would acquire in 1918. The Japan Times later acquired The Japan Chronicle (formerly British-owned) and The Japan Advertiser (initially American-owned) in 1940, establishing its role as a prominent publication.
We are currently working on making content published from the end of the Edo Period to the beginning of the Meiji Era (roughly 150 years ago) available, as well as material from The Japan Advertiser when Jiro Shirasu was a reporter.
Do not miss this opportunity to explore the database of the largest English-language newspaper in Japan.
The Japan Times will add some of the content from the original Japan Times, launched in 1865, to the Digital Archives. The publication is arguably one of the few remaining newspapers from that era that enables us to experience society at that point in time. To mark the release of “The Japan Times of the 1860s,” Sayuri Daimon, managing editor of The Japan Times, interviewed Sophia University professor Yuga Suzuki, who specializes in the history of journalism, about the early paper’s value as a historical source and the characteristics of its contents.
Click here to read the full interview.Authentication method: | IP address recoginition |
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Search, view method: | Date, day, edition (main paper, extra edition, supplement), Full-text search possible using data from OCR scan |
Publication frequency: | Daily (was random in the early years of the paper) |
Period of contents available: | 1897 to 2017 We add one new year's worth of data every year. |
Number of pages: | 513,340 pages (as of February 2018) |
System requirement: | 1024 pixels or 1280 pixels Windows Internet Explorer 8.x 9.x, 10.x Google Chrome 33.x Mozilla Firefox 27.x Macintosh Safari 6.0.5 |
Free 30-day trial is available for potential purchasing and subscribing customers.
We may change services and prices without notice.
Access The Japan Times Archives with one of the following plans.
Options 1 and 2 make multiple accesses impossible as they are installed with an IP address recognition function. Users can conduct keyword searches for content published through 2017.
Users can conduct keyword searches for the period of the discs users purchase. Users also have access to the online version (same products as the above two) for the period available for the discs. The number of available simultaneous accesses is for the online version is the same as the number of packages purchased. (10 is the upper limit.)
E.g.) Users who purchase JT1, JT2 and JT3 have up to three accesses.