List of archives in Japan

This is a list of archives 'in Japan'. According to the National Archives of Japan, "archives are one of the three key pillars of culture, together with libraries and museums".

Background

Archive-like facilities and repositories for official documents known as Kan no Fudono existed in the Asuka period, while the Shōsōin's holdings include over 11,000 paper documents. The post-war period of Occupation saw the passing of the Library Act and Museum Act ; also in 1951, by ministerial decree, the Ministry of Education set up its Repository for Historical Documents to collect old documents and records, the nucleus of the Department of Historical Documents at the National Institute of Japanese Literature. 1959 saw establishment of the Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives, the country's first dedicated archival institution; from the outset it collected public administrative and governmental records as well as old documents. Further prefectural archives followed in Saitama, Tōkyō, and Kyōto in the 1960s, and in 1971 the National Archives were established. By the end of the 1970s there were fifteen archives at the national, prefectural, and city levels. The 1980s brought nine further prefectural archives and four in ordinance-designated cities, while the Public Archives Act was passed in 1987. Entering into force in June the following year, the first of its seven articles stresses the "importance of preserving and providing for use public records and archives as historical materials." Nevertheless, recent municipal mergers and dissolutions have occasioned concerns about the loss of municipal records.