"Eight Articles of the
New Government Plan"

Modern Political and Constitutional History
The NDL in its stock has a collection of historical documents helping to trace the development of Japanese modern politics in and after the latter half of the 19th century. Comprising approximately 300,000 items of documents, the collection includes the diaries, letters, draft memorandums and other writings of statesmen (for example, Hirobumi Ito, Sanetomi Sanjo, Tomomi Iwakura), diplomats (Munemitsu Mutsu), military personnel (Makoto Saito, Masatake Terauchi), government administrators, industrialists.

Collection of official
gazettes and statutes

Materials concerning Postwar Occupation of Japan
An NDL collection of records, reports and other materials held by the Allied Occupation Forces after W.W.II. The mainstay are the some 30 million pages of documents prepared by GHQ and SCAP (General Headquarters and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) and held by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Also included are the documents of the Far Eastern Commission and the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Team and the Prange Collection held by the University of Maryland. All of the documents in this collection are stored in microfilms.

Parliamentary Documents and Official Publications
As the library of the Diet, the NDL collects the Diet proceedings and parliamentary documents of about 70 countries and regions. In addition, official gazettes, statutes, court reports and treaties of about 150 countries and regions are included. Consist of 740,000 volumes of books,1.31 million items of magazines and 1.9 million of microforms, this is the largest collection of this genre in Japan.

Science and Technology related
The National Diet Library has acquired and made available books and booklets of Publication Board reports, nuclear power reports, foreign doctoral dissertations, academic society proceedings and reports, technical standards, etc.

Map Collection
The NDL has about 500,000 maps of Japan and foreign countries, including Japan's official topographic, geological maps and hydrographic charts produced in the Meiji Period up to the present and topographic maps of foreign countries.

Sound Recordings
As copies of phonographic records produced in Japan are deposited with the National Diet Library, it now has a stock of about 530,000 records and CDs.

Foreign Books about Japan
As with the former Imperial Library, one of the NDL's important activities is to collect foreign writings on Japan. Particularly notable in the collection of this genre are the reports on Japan written by the first Christian missionaries who visited Japan during the 16th century.

Asian language materials
Materials in Chinese, Korean and other Asian languages as well as Japanese and Western languages concerning East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

"Tea Ceremony" by de Moraes

Rare Books and Old Materials
The stock of the NDL includes the old Japanese writings of the Edo Period or earlier that were inherited from the former Imperial Library. The major collections in the possession of the NDL are:

"The Tokugawa Shogunate Succession Documents"
- This collection consists of 5,700 items taken over from the Tokugawa Shogunate government. The records of the Town Magistrates' Offices account for the main part of the collection. The records of the Supreme Court of the Shogunate, the Commissioners of Shrines and Temples and the Office of Magistrates of Public Architecture are also included.

"Saishiki Mitsu no Asa"
by Torii Kiyonaga

"The Ito Bunko", "The Shirai Bunko"
- These twocollections comprise about 8,000 manuscripts and wood block-printed booksformerly possessed by a herbalist, Keisuke ITO (1863-1932) and a botanist,Kotaro SHIRAI (1863-1932), on the subject of "honzo" or medicinal herbs. Someparts of these collections are digitized and accessible at "Degitized Contents(Rare books, etc.)" and ourelectronic exhibition "Fauna and Flora inillustrations –Natural History of Edo Era-".

"The Shinjo Bunko"
- A Collection of 12,000 itemsof old writings on astronomy and calendars collected by an astronomer, ShinzoSHINJO (1873-1938). Some parts of these collections are digitized and accessibleat "Degitized Contents(Rare books, etc.)" and ourelectronic exhibition "The JapaneseCalendar".

* The NDL collection of old Chinese books is particularly noted for its documents of the Ch'ing dynasty era, genealogical records, and local histories.

For details, please see here.