Reference tools include sources for answering questions that arise once research is underway.

Atlases, Gazetteers and Maps –

Information about places in Japan over time as well as maps, both historical and current, online and in print. 

Book Reviews –

More useful for English language books than Japanese; citation indexes are also useful for evaluating books.

Chronologies –

Arranged by date, Japanese versions often compare political, social and cultural events by era.

Concordances –

A concordance is a list of the principal words used in a book or body of work, with their immediate contexts. Developed for classical Japanese poetry.

Dictionaries –

Includes both Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionaries, kokugo, kanwa, old and current words, specialized and online dictionaries. There are many forms of dictionaries; this site presents one or two examples of each type; more can be found by clicking on the subject headings.

Directories –

Includes institutional and organizational directories for education, non-profits, business and politics.

Names and People –

How to read a name, find information on living and dead people.

Statistics –

demographic and economic statistics; for political data, see political science