Japanese newspapers
from general news-oriented papers to special interest newspapers
Japanese newspapers (新聞 shinbun, or older spelling shimbun), similar to their worldwide counterparts, run the gamut from general news-oriented papers to special-interest newspapers devoted to economics, sports, literature, industry, and trade. Newspapers are circulated either nationally, by region (such as Kantō or Kansai), by each prefecture, or by each city. Some newspapers publish as often as two times a day (morning and evening editions) while others publish weekly, monthly, quarterly, or even yearly. The five leading national daily newspapers in Japan are the Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, the Yomiuri Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun and the Nikkei Shimbun. The first two are generally considered liberal/left-leaning while the latter three are considered conservative/right-leaning. The most popular national daily English-language newspaper in Japan is The Japan Times.
The majority of the newspaper articles are printed vertically. Japanese law prohibits newspaper publishers to be publicly traded.
Brief history
Japanese newspapers began in the 17th century as yomiuri (読売, literally 'to read and sell') or kawaraban (瓦版, literally 'tile-block printing', referring to the use of clay printing blocks), which were printed handbills sold in major cities to commemorate major social gatherings or events.
The first modern newspaper was the Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser, which was published bi-weekly by the Englishman A. W. Hansard.
“Japanese newspapers” enters the record as from general news-oriented papers to special interest newspapers. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Japanese, newspapers and general can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Japanese newspapers” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Japanese, newspapers and general provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6158891. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Japanese newspapers” 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.