The Story of Citizen Watches

Citizen has always come a long way in the watch industry, from being overshadowed by bigger, more recognizable brands to slowly getting the recognition it deserves for its well-built, reliable, and reasonably priced watches.

The story of Citizen is one that truly deserves to be told. It all began in the late Meiji and Taisho eras (the early 1900s-1920s) when timepiece and jewelry dealer Kamekachi Yamakazi made a tour of pocket watch manufacturing sites in countries like Switzerland and the US.

His intention was to localize pocket watches and create a thriving market for the product in Japan. Upon arriving in his home country Yamazaki established the Shokosha watch research institute, the forerunner of the Citizen watch.

Using Swiss machinery Kamekachi and his team started experimenting with the production of pocket watches. By 1924 they had started production of their first pocket watch which they sold under the brand name Citizen.

The company was quite successful, owing to both the public and private sentiment which favoured domestically produced goods at the time.

Citizen’s Success was so huge that the company could not keep up with the demand, eventually expanding its Yodobashi factory and building a new one in Tanashi city.

Since then, Citizen Watches have always been at the forefront of innovation, the first manually wound men’s wrist watch released in 1931, with the women’s version being released in 1935, the first manually wound calendar wristwatch which lets the user set the date month and time in 1952, the first shock resistant watch in 1956 are just some of the developments that Citizen has pioneered.

Even today the company is breaking new ground with the Eco-drive, one of the first watches in the world to receive time signals from satellites. Citizen is a brand whose impact on the watch industry cannot be ignored.