is a daily newspaper published in Kyoto, Japan, by The Kyoto Shimbun Company under the Kyoto Shimbun Holdings. It is the local newspaper for Kyoto and Shiga prefectures. It is also known in the latter as the Shiga Kyoto Shimbun. In addition to the two prefectures, it also sells some issues of its morning edition in certain parts of Osaka Prefecture.
It was founded in June 1879 as Kyoto Shōji Jinhō. It changed its name several times before becoming the Kyoto Hinode Shimbun. It was merged with Kyoto Nichi Nichi Shimbun to form The Kyoto Shimbun in 1942. It absorbed the Shiga Nichinichi Shimbun in 1979. , the publication produced around 347,000 copies daily across its morning and evening editions.
Described as a liberal-leaning newspaper, it publishes various news about culture, politics, and sports in Kyoto. Alongside print media, it also publishes news on its website, Kyoto Shimbun Digital.
History 19th century The Kyoto Shimbun was founded on June 9, 1879, as by M. Hamaoka. He served as the company president until 1902. It was renamed to just in August of the same year. It was subsequently renamed to in July 1882, and to in October 1884. During this period, it was often censored due to its anti-government commentaries. It ceased publication in 1892.
The , which was founded in April 1885, became the replacement for the defunct Chūgai Denpō. Following the latter's discontinuation, its reporters joined the Hinode Shimbun. Hinode Shimbun carried various reports on Japanese tea culture during the Meiji period. Notable writers included Sazanami Iwaya and Kyōka Izumi. It was renamed in July 1897. It is the only newspaper published in Kyoto during the mid-Meiji era to survive beyond the Chūgai Denpōs 1892 demise.
20th century During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, Kyoto Hinode Shimbun, alongside other newspapers, ran a fundraising campaign. They published articles raising donations for the soldiers and their families, as well as promoting government bonds. "Kyoto Hinode Shinbun and other newspapers also ran a campaign to promote government bonds and fundraising by carrying a large article calling for donations for soldiers at the front and for their families" Kyoto Hinode Shimbun ran an article titled " to support soldiers and their families" on its front page almost every day, covering the fundraising campaign it organized. It also published daily columns reporting how the war affected Kyoto on its seventh page, which was meant to "inspire nationalism". "Kyoto Hinode Shinbun ran an article entitled ‘Fund raising to support soldiers and their families’ on its front page almost every day, calling for participation in a charitable fund activity that it was organizing.... Day after day the newspaper carries a new column entitled ‘War and Kyoto’ on its seventh page to report how the war is affecting the city; this column contains a lot news items that inspire nationalism."
, another predecessor of the newspaper, was founded in February 1912 as . Following the completion of , which widened the main roads and constructed tramlines in Kyoto, the Gion parade was banned by Kyoto Governor Ōmori Shōichi on June 11, 1912. He dubbed the parade " festival of one city shrine." Organizers of the parade, along with Kyoto Hinode Shimbun, fought back with an anti-ban campaign that published a series of critical pieces by scholars, such as professors at the Imperial University of Kyoto, condemning his decision. Ōmori lifted the ban on the parade after intense pressure from the campaign. "In the end, Governor Ōmori buckled under intense pressure from the campaign".
During the Taishō political crisis in February 1913, a riot broke out in Kyoto. The office of Kyoto Hinode Shimbun was attacked by a mob which threw empty glass bottles at the windows of the building. The building was cordoned off by the police, but the barricade was broken down at night. Staff of the newspaper office defended the building by spraying the rioters with water hoses. A staff member, alongside police officers, who were all armed with swords, charged towards the mob. At least 19 men were arrested by the police.
Kyoto Yūkan Shimbun changed its name to in May 1916, and finally to Kyoto Nichinichi Shimbun in October 1920. Kyoto Nichinichi Shimbun was merged with Kobe Shimbun and Osaka Jiji Shimpō to form in August 1931. It was subsequently dissolved in December 1933.
After the passage of the National Mobilization Law in 1938, newspapers across Japan, including the Kyoto Hinode Shimbun and Kyoto Nichinichi Shimbun, were subjected to military censorship. In April 1942, following the wartime "One Prefecture, One Newspaper" consolidation policy of the Empire of Japan, the Kyoto Hinode Shimbun and Kyoto Nichinichi Shimbun merged to form the Kyoto Shimbun. In June 1963, 15 journalists of the Kyoto Shimbun, headed by Kokyo Shiraishi, went to Moscow as delegates. On August 9, Shiraishi received a letter from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev stating his willingness to establish normal relations between the Soviet Union and Japan. In 1979, it absorbed the , becoming the prefectural newspaper for both Shiga Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture.
The Kyoto Shimbun signed an agreement in 1994 with the Kobe Shimbun to aid each other in case of emergency. A year later, on January 17, 1995, three hours after the Great Hanshin earthquake struck the Kansai region, Kobe Shimbun telephoned the Kyoto Shimbun for help. They cooperated to continue printing the former's regular 520,000 daily copies, even after its printing office was destroyed. The Kyoto Shimbun Company helped produce negative films for both the four-page evening edition and eight-page morning edition of the Kobe Shimbun. Hideo Yamane, the Kobe Shimbun top editor, thanked the Kyoto Shimbun, stating in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: "We struggled to find a way and found the ‘holy light’ of the Kyoto Shimbun."
21st century On April 13, 2012, a former shop owner in Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, filed a lawsuit against the Kyoto Shimbun. The shop owner alleged that the publication forced him to buy worth of newspapers every month between January 2007 and August 2011, despite low demand leading to the shop's demise. He was seeking in damages.
The publication released its online edition called Kyoto Shimbun Digital in April 2014. In the same month, The Kyoto Shimbun Company changed its trade name to The Kyoto Shimbun Holdings. It is the first local newspaper company in Japan to become a holding company.
In December 2019, The Kyoto Shimbun reporting team won the 25th Peace & Cooperation Journalist Fund Awards grand prize for its series of reports regarding the forced sterilization surgeries carried out from 1948 until 1996 under the former Eugenic Protection Law. On August 7, 2020, Toshiyuki Mori, a reporter for The Kyoto Shimbun, filed a lawsuit against Shiga Prefecture seeking to overturn the prefecture's decision to withhold most of the documents related to such forced sterilizations under the former Eugenic Protection Law. In a press conference in Ōtsu, The Kyoto Shimbun stated that "information disclosure is essential to clarify the actual situation." On March 24, 2023, the Ōtsu District Court ordered the disclosure of information such as the age of the person in question and the name of the medical institution that performed the surgery.
On April 20, 2022, it was revealed that Kyoto Shimbun Holdings, the parent company of the newspaper, had been found guilty by a third-party committee of violating Article 120 of the Companies Act for paying over in compensation to stockholder Hiroko Shiraishi—whose family was involved in the newspaper—in the course of 34 years. Several reporters of the Kyoto Shimbun filed a lawsuit against two former advisors of Kyoto Shimbun Holdings to the Kyoto District Court on June 29, seeking in compensation. In January 2025, the reporters won the lawsuit and were granted ¥500 million in compensation. Shiraishi appealed the ruling. On March 25, 2026, the Osaka District Court reduced the compensation to .
On November 14, 2023, The Kyoto Shimbun issued an apology after it was found that five contributed columns written by Professor Masamichi Aihara of Osaka University of Economics published in the evening edition of the newspaper from October 2020 to October 2023 were plagiarized from The Nikkei and other sources.
A serialized column titled by The Kyoto Shimbun about the Kyoto Animation arson attack won the 2024 Nihon Shinbun Kyokai Awards and the 31st Sakata Memorial Journalism Award. On March 1, 2025, it changed the nameplate of the Shiga Prefecture edition to .
On April 3, 2026, it requested that the AI summary tweet of the publication's polling article about the 2026 Kyoto gubernatorial election, which was held on April 5, go viral on X. The chatbot erroneously tweeted that Satoshi Hamada and incumbent governor Takatoshi Nishiwaki were tied in a poll conducted by the publication, despite the article stating that Nishiwaki was in the lead. On July 8, the book The Newspaper, published by The Kyoto Shimbun Printing and featuring photographs and text about the production and delivery of the newspaper, was a finalist under the Photo and Text category at the Rencontres d'Arles.
Circulation
The newspaper currently publishes two editions each day: the morning issue and the evening issue. According to the Japan Audit Bureau of Circulations, , circulation stood at roughly 282,091 copies for the morning edition and 65,019 copies. In addition to Kyoto and Shiga prefectures, it also sells back issues of its morning edition in certain parts of Osaka Prefecture.
According to the Japan Audit Bureau of Circulations, in October 2025, the Kyoto Shimbun shares roughly 47.1% and 39.3% of the newspaper market in Kyoto Prefecture, selling 231,799 and 62,779 copies for its morning and evening editions, respectively. In Kyoto City, it received shares of 53.1% and 44.9%, selling 134,898 and 44,064 copies for its morning and evening editions, respectively. For Shiga Prefecture, it received a share of 19.9% and 14.0%, selling 50,292 and 2,240 copies for its morning and evening editions, respectively.
In addition to print, the newspaper also publishes news on its website, Kyoto Shimbun Digital, its own mobile app, and through social media such as X. The website has around 300,000 monthly subscribers.
Editorial stance
The editorial position of The Kyoto Shimbun has been described as liberal. Previously, its predecessor, Kyoto Hinode Shimbun, strongly supported chauvinism. "When the first domestic bonds were issued, the newspaper strongly supported chauvinism in its editorial:..."
The publication, alongside Mainichi Shimbun, was "serious" about environmental reporting. The Japan Times noted that the publication, alongside Fukui Shimbun, also ran more critical and more comprehensive articles about nuclear power than the national newspapers.
The newspaper's articles have been described as placing a heavy emphasis on 'peace' as its purpose. Following a press conference by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about "collective self-defence" in May 2014, The Kyoto Shimbun published an editorial stating "Military expansion is spreading under the rationale of protecting peace" and urging its readers to "read the Preamble and Article 9 of the Constitution".
The publication is against the use of nuclear weapons and a nuclear arms race, publishing numerous editorials encouraging the Japanese government to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as an observer. It is also against the proposed revision of the Japanese Constitution citing the importance of Article 12, or , in maintaining "peace and freedom".
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