Smoking in Japan is practiced by around 20,000,000 people, and the nation is one of the world's largest tobacco markets, though tobacco use has been declining in recent years.
Tobacco on display in a store in Tokyo
A no smoking patrol in Adachi, Tokyo in 2014
E-Goyomi (Lady Smoking) Woodblock print believed to be by Korinsai, dating between 1785 and 1790. She is smoking with a long kiseru.
Ninth month of the series Minami jūni kō Woodcut print by Torii Kiyonaga, around 1784. A long kiseru beside one of three prostitutes who is reading a paper in a brothel at Shinagawa, Tokyo.
The Japan Tobacco Inc. (JT) is a Japanese diversified tobacco company. It was established in 1985 as a tokushu gaisha that inherited the right to monopolize and manufacture cigarettes from the Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation and required the government to hold at least 50% of its shares. In addition to tobacco, JT diversified its businesses, establishing the pharmaceutical research institute in 1993 and making a full-scale entry into the food and beverage industry in 1998. In 2008, it acquired the food manufacturer Katokichi, now TableMark, as a wholly-owned subsidiary, integrating its food business.
Headquarters in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo
