Watches of Japan – What you need to know

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Country Profile

Official Languages: Japanese
Capital: Tokyo
Largest City: Tokyo
Currency: Yen (JPY)

About Japan

In the Pacific Ocean lies a small island country, called Japan. Japan is not just one island; it consists of over 3,000 islands. It is known as the “Land of the Rising Sun”. Japan’s national flag is one of the most recognisable in the world, with it’s white background and large red circle directly in the center of the flag.

There are four large islands among the islands, with Honshu being one of them. Most of the islands have mountains, and many of the mountainous islands are volcanic. Mount Fuji, itself is an active volcano, and at its base is the 10th largest populated city in the world.

People have been living on these islands since the early Paleolithic period, around 30,000 BC. Today Japan’s government is called a constitional monarchy, which was adapted in 1947, shortly after the 2nd World War. This type of government gives little power to the Emperor; however, this is not how it has been in the past.

Now the power of the country is held by the Prime Minister of Japan along with other members of the legislative assembly. Japan is a major economic power, it is the world’s fourth largest exporter, and it is a world leader in technology, robotics, and machinery.

Watches of Japan   What you need to know

Rise of Japanese Watch Making

After the 2nd World War had ended, Japan really wanted to take a lead in any area that they could to become know as a world leader in that area. Finally, it was decided to take the lead in product exports. Japan adapted an approach to take “Quality over Quantity”, and began manufacturing products with intense precision and quality.

In 1913, the Seiko watch company was formed, and in the last half of the 20th century the brand name “Seiko” had become the pride of Japan, and Japanese watches, because of the high standards and the high quality that Seiko had become known for.

Later in the late 20th century Japanese watches such as “Citizen”, “Casio”, joined in the new technology and new innovations for Japan to be the Worlds first and best watchmakers.

The “Citizen” watch was named by the Mayor of Tokyo, himself, in 1930, the Honorable Mr. Shinpei Goto. There have been over 293 million units of the “Citizen” manufactured since its beginning.

Seiko produced the first commercial quartz watch in 1969, the Seiko 35 SQ Astron, which utilized a single quartz oscillator that worked at a frequency of 8192 cycles per second. It was so accurate that it is always within 5 seconds a month, one way or the other, and in a years time it only is within one minute difference in the accuracy.

Casio had been very successful in the electronic calculator business, and decided to try making watches. They had made dynamic break throughs with LSI technology and by 1974; it released its firs computerized watch called the “Casiotron”, which not only showed the seconds, minutes, and hours it could calculate the numbers of the days of the month, and it could calculate if the year was a leap year.

Future Watches of Japan

Many watches in the future will lose the round design that watches have maintained over the years, however, they will still continue to be updated with the latest technologies. We already have seen some Japanese watches that were also cell phones, and TV’s, in the future we may see a trend in Press to Talk types of wrist watches. By S.Shiflett