Articles 1985-PresentHow to use

About Search

The latest news, as well as a menu for those searching current events.

You can easily search in each edition of the Asahi Shimbun with the search criteria you require, such as complete keyword match, publication date, category and Chinese character variant.

Proceed to Search

By clicking the button, a search will start. You could also hit the enter key on your keyboard.

Keywords

When you have more than two keywords for a search, insert a space between the two words, then articles which contain those words will appear as the search result.
Also, you could press "AND""OR""NOT" buttons after each keyword, then signs "AND""OR"and "NOT" will appear in the search window respectively. Those signs would also help narrow down your search.

Related Keyword Reference

After entering keywords, press this button. A separate window will open and show original keywords related to the keyword(s) you had searched. The related keywords characterize the contents of the articles that contain your keywords. An automatic search is conducted on new articles accumulated in the database during the past three months. The related keywords are lined up in order of consistency to the article. Since the analysis is done on the computer basis, particular nouns such as a person's name may not appear fully on the screen.

You may choose the related keyword in the window and press "choose," then the word is added to the original keywords you had selected.

Variant Chinese Character Search

It is possible to search with notations, including Chinese character variants, contracted sounds, double consonants, and middle points (・).

  • Chinese character variants here refer to character forms which differ from the usual form. This can include differences between newly created characters and old characters, personal names and place names.Searching 沢田 (Sahada) returns both 沢田 (Sahada) and 澤田 (Sawada).
    This eliminates the need to search with the OR operator (沢田+澤田).
    (Example)沢(Saha)—澤(Sawa)、島(Shima)—嶋(Shima)、国(Kuni)—國(Kuni)
  • Searches which incorporate contracted sounds and double consonants such as 「ぁ」(Ah) and 「あ」(Ah) will return both results. For example a search on キャッツ (Kyattsu) returns both キャッツ (Kyattsu) andキヤツツ (Kyatsu).
  • Searches which include notation such as middle points (・) when searching on words of foreign origin or foreign names return results both with and without the notation.
    (Example)
    John・F・Kennedy will also return John F Kennedy
    World・Cup will also return World Cup

Synonym Search

It is possible to do searches with synonyms.

  • Synonyms include terms that have the same meaning yet are written differently, for example America- United States of America, 百貨店 (hyakaten) and デパート(department store), 五輪 (gorin) and オリンピック (Olympics). A search on 五輪 "gorin" returns results containing both 五輪 "gorin" or オリンピック "Olympics". In addition, abbreviations for terms appearing in newspaper articles such as "Japan Fair Trade Commission" and "JFTC" are also taken into account.

Clear

By clicking the button, all requests you had made in the previous search will be all cleared.

Publication

The default setting is that all contents are checked, with all four newspapers and magazines being searched.
If checks are removed from everything except the 'Asahi Shimbun', only the ‘Asahi Shimbun' will be searched.

Publication Date

The default setting is that 'Whole period' is checked, with the search being performed in articles of the Asahi Shimbun from August 1984 and Asahi Shimbun Digital, AERA and Shukan Asahi from the start of their storage periods.
The 'past 3 months', 'past 6 months' or 'past year' can be specified.

By clicking each of the "year/month/day" boxes, a Date of issue can be specified. Using the 'から' (From) box with 'のみ' (Only) or 'まで' (To), the search period can be specified.

Search Scope

You could choose from "auxiliary keywords and article and headline" "article and headline" "headline" "article."

<Auxiliary keywords>
When the database editorial department deems it necessary, it adds secondary keywords to the database for things, events, etc. which have been referred to by different names in initial reporting. For example, before it got its official moniker, Tokyo Skytree was called "the New Tokyo Tower" or "Tokyo Tower Two." You can now search articles about "Tokyo Skytree" published before it was given its official appellation by adding these older names as secondary keywords.

Category

When you click "specify," a sub-window would open and shows "categories" to choose from. By clicking the category in the sub-window, the chosen categories would show up on the entry box.
You could only use the category function for Asahi Shimbun articles published after December 1, 1998. If you wish to search the stories published before the date, it would not work.

Category(PDF)(Japanese Only)

Morning / Evening Editions

The default setting is not that the 'Morning edition' and 'Evening edition' are checked, and both editions are searched.
By checking either the 'Morning edition' or the 'Evening edition', a narrower search can be specified.

Pages

When you click "specify," a sub-window would open and different pages of the newspaper such as "Politics Page" "Business Page" shall appear. Choose the page you wish to search and click "select" so the pages you had chosen would show up on the entry box.
All the pages would be the target for a search when you do not choose any of the pages.
If you wish to search articles in the regional editions, punch the name of the prefecture such as "Kyoto" and "Kanagawa" directly into the entry box.

National/Prefectural Editions

The default setting is that both the 'National Edition' and all the 'Prefectural Edition' will be searched.
If you uncheck 'Prefectural Edition', only the 'National Edition' will be searched, with national articles such as Page 1 and the business news pages being the target of the search. If you uncheck 'National Edition', only the Prefectural Editions edited in the various prefectures will be searched.

Offices

The default setting is that all head offices are checked, with articles from all head offices being searched.
If the names of head offices are unchecked, only those articles in the final edition published in those head offices will be searched.

  • The Asahi Shimbun has "prefectural edition" covering news in all the prefectures in Japan, and at the same time, edited and published in four different Head Offices located in different part of the nation to customize the readers' needs of interests. Therefore, articles contained in front pages and business pages may differ by editions published in each head office.

Images

Under the initial setting, no check marks appear and all articles are covered in the search. Using check marks, the search can be narrowed to only articles in available pages that contain photographs or figures and illustrations.

  • Articles after November 2005 appear in text and also clippings. This makes it possible to view photographs and figures, but in some cases these cannot be displayed due to copyright or other issues.
  • For Asahi Shimbun Digital, AERA, and Shukan Asahi, only the text version is available (no newspaper page image is available), but the "Photographs and figures" check box will function. If you would like to view the photographs and figures from the article, please check the date of publication and page number and use the original hard copy.

List

  • Number of Articles

    You could choose the headlines of the search result to be listed on a single display between 10 to 100. The original setting is 20.
  • Sorting

    You could arrange the sequence of the headlines. The original setting is the newest article to be shown on the top of the list. You could either choose the original setting or list the oldest headline available on the top of of the list.
    You can also view them in order of Keyword Appearance.

For inquiries and questions

The Asahi Shimbun Database Support