The ''Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan'' is a comprehensive

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

first published in 1983 that covers a broad range of topics on

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

History

First published by

Kodansha is a Japanese privately-held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha is the largest Japanese publishing company, and it produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi'', ''Afternoon'', ''Evening'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' an ...

in 1983 followed by a supplemental volume in 1986. A two-volume updated edition, and a one-volume abridged (and updated) edition were published in 1993. The latter was the basis of the online version, which as of June 2010, is no longer available as a free-standing site. It can still be accessed through the JapanKnowledge database.

Content

The encyclopedia was created by both Japanese (680) and non-Japanese scholars (524) from 27 nations. Some of the advisors to the ''Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan'' included Edwin O. Reischauer, Gerald L. Curtis,

Ronald P. Dore Ronald Philip Dore (1 February 1925 – 14 November 2018) was a British sociologist specialising in Japanese economy and society and the comparative study of types of capitalism. He was an associate of the Centre for Economic Performance at ...

, John W. Hall,

Ezra Vogel Ezra Feivel Vogel (; July 11, 1930 — December 20, 2020 ) was an American sociologist who wrote prolifically on modern Japan, China, and Korea, and worked both in academia and the public sphere. He was Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Scie ...

Akira Iriye is a historian of diplomatic history, international, and transnational history. He taught at University of Chicago and Harvard University until his retirement in 2005. In 1988 he served as president of the American Historical Association, the ...

, and

Tsuru Shigeto was a prominent Japanese politician and economist. Suzumura, Kotaro"Obituary – Shigeto Tsuru: life work and legacy". European Journal of the History of Economic Thought; Dec 2006, Vol. 13 Issue 4, p613-620, 8p. He was widely honored for his sc ...

. Japanese scholars produced 40 percent of the text, while foreign scholars wrote the remaining 60 percent. Japanese and American scholars wrote the majority of the articles. Many articles are English translations from Japanese encyclopedias. There are more than 11,000 entries covering 37 categories of information. These include encyclopedia standards such as history, literature, art, religion, economy, and geography. In addition, science, technology, law, women, folklore, plant and animal life, food, clothing, sports, and leisure are given separate categories. It also contains roughly 1000 illustrations in the form of photographs, maps, diagrams, graphs, charts and tables. The ninth index volume contains names and words mentioned within the encyclopedia, but not assigned separate entries. To accommodate a wide audience, from students to businessmen and diplomats, articles were written with the dual purpose of introducing topics at a level appropriate for a high-school student and provide a good starting point for more advanced students with some knowledge of Japan. Numerous articles are no more than a paragraph. However, more general headings such as "

History of Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inven ...

" have as many as 70,000 words. Many are signed, especially the longer ones. A lot of articles are followed by suggestions for further readings in English, Japanese, and occasionally other languages. Japanese names are given in Japanese order (family names first).

Citations

General references

External links

JapanKnowledge database
{{Authority control 1983 non-fiction books 20th-century encyclopedias English-language encyclopedias Japanese online encyclopedias Japanese encyclopedias Kodansha

History

Content

See also

Citations

General references

External links