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Toyo Bunko, founded by Iwasaki Hisaya and located in Bunkyo Ward in Tokyo, is within a short walk of the Edo-era Rikugien Garden which is a famous for its weeping cherry blossoms in the Spring and beautiful maple trees in the Fall. Hisaya, who was deeply involved in the development of Japanese modern industry, also had a deep interest in culture and learning. He was not only a bibliophile. He eagerly sought the advice of scholars who assisted in building a collection of important Chinese, Japanese and Korean classic works. His collection, starting from the acquisition of the library of George Ernest Morrison also included works on Asia written in Western languages. In 1924 he founded the Toyo Bunko, opening the collection to use by the scholarly community, with the vision of encouraging scholarship on Asia. In subsequent years, others who shared his vision donated their collections to the library, making Toyo Bunko today the largest research library in Japan for Asian studies, and one of the outstanding collections in the world.

When the main building was rebuilt in 2011, Toyo Bunko added on a museum, and today it draws visitors from school children to senior citizens, introducing Asian scholarship to the world.

In 2024 Toyo Bunko is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding. The centennial celebrations offer an occasion to consider the accomplishments of the first one hundred years, and to look to the future, in which the digitization of the collection offers opportunities for greater sharing of the valuable resources and prospects for new styles of research.
We look forward to welcoming you to Toyo Bunko.

Kuroyanagi Nobuo, Chairman of the Board
Toyo Bunko

The “Bunko” of Toyo Bunko is a term used to describe a collection of books, and, like the word library, the space where the books are kept. The “Toyo” (literally “Eastern Seas”) of Toyo Bunko’s name comes from the fact that the library is a collection of books for the study of Asian history and culture, containing classic works in Japanese, Chinese and Korean, as well as works in European languages about Asia. The research collection was created to provide the basic materials for the study of the development of Eurasia, except for Western Europe, from a Japanese perspective.

We can trace the inspiration for the founding of Toyo Bunko to the “opening of Japan to the world” in 1869.  With Japan’s opening, Japanese began to pay much more attention to international affairs, and at the same time scholars began to seek more scientific and objective views of historical development, in a word there was a rising demand for modern style historical research. The materials collected in the library include materials on Northeast Asia, North Asia, Central Asia, Western Asia, China, Tibet, India, and Southeast Asia.

The Library collection grew from several 10,000 volumes at the start to more than a million volumes today, and the research results of scholars associated with Toyo Bunko have been published in several series, which have been widely circulated both in Japan and overseas. Today Toyo Bunko’s name is known as one of the most outstanding libraries and research organizations for Asian studies in the world.  The three pillars of Toyo Bunko—its Library, Research Groups, and the Museum—are all carried out as parts of its efforts to promote the public interest. In our contemporary world with its rapid advances in globalization and information technology, Toyo Bunko continues to strive to fulfill its mission, meeting new challenges of the new age. We are grateful for your understanding and support.

Shiba Yoshinobu, Executive Librarian
Toyo Bunko