Iccho Itoh
Japanese politician (1945-2007)

Iccho Itoh (伊藤 一長, 23 August 1945 – 18 April 2007) was a Japanese politician who served as the mayor of Nagasaki from 1995 to 2007.
Itoh was fatally shot by Tetsuya Shiroo, a member of the yakuza, on 17 April 2007 and died the following morning.
Early life
Kazunaga Itō was born on 23 August 1945 in Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture, 8 days after the Surrender of Japan and two weeks after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Itoh's family moved to his father's hometown of Nagasaki when he was three years-old. Itoh first aspired to become mayor of Nagasaki while attending Nishi Prefectural High School, and after graduating from Waseda University with a degree in political science began working for the Nagasaki City Development Corporation.
Itoh's first name (一長) was originally pronounced Kazunaga in the kun-yomi reading, but he elected to use more euphonious on-yomi reading of Itchō or Iccho for his mayoralty. Itoh's name was romanized as Itcho Ito by Mainichi Shimbun, Reuters, and Al-Jazeera. CNN used the Iccho Ito romanization. The Asahi Shimbun used Iccho Itoh. Itoh spelled his name romanized as Iccho Itoh in his English language letter to U.S. President George W. Bush.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Iccho Itoh” is japanese politician (1945-2007). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Iccho, Itoh and Japanese, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “japanese politician (1945-2007)” 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 entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q444960. VIAF identifies the subject as 259288353. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 2007 and 1995.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Iccho Itoh”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Iccho Itoh primary sources, Iccho Itoh archive and Iccho 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
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Iccho Itoh”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Iccho Itoh” 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.