The Asahi Shimbun
Japanese newspaper
The Asahi Shimbun (朝日新聞; IPA: [asaçi ɕiꜜmbɯɴ], lit. 'morning sun newspaper') is a Japanese daily newspaper founded in 1879. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan.
The Asahi Shimbun is one of the five largest newspapers in Japan along with the Yomiuri Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and Chunichi Shimbun. The newspaper's circulation, which was 3.26 million for its morning edition and 892,295 for its evening edition as of June 2025, was second behind that of the Yomiuri Shimbun. By print circulation, it is the second largest newspaper in the world behind the Yomiuri, though its digital size trails that of many global newspapers including The New York Times.
Its publisher, The Asahi Shimbun Company, is a media conglomerate with its registered headquarters in Osaka. It is a privately held family business with ownership and control remaining with the founding Murayama and Ueno families. According to the Reuters Institute Digital Report 2018, public trust in the Asahi Shimbun is the lowest among Japan's major dailies, though confidence is declining in all the major newspapers.
History
Early years
One of Japan's oldest and largest national daily newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun began publication in Osaka on 25 January 1879 as a small-print, four-page illustrated paper that sold for one sen (a hundredth of a yen) a copy, and had a circulation of approximately 3,000 copies. The three founding officers of a staff of twenty were Kimura Noboru (company president), Murayama Ryōhei (owner), and Tsuda Tei (managing editor).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Asahi Shimbun” is japanese newspaper. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Asahi, Shimbun and Japanese, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “japanese newspaper” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q720503. VIAF identifies the subject as 178217680. The Library of Congress control number is n82053195. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 2025 and 2018.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Asahi Shimbun”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Asahi Shimbun primary sources, The Asahi Shimbun archive and Asahi research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “The Asahi Shimbun” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.