Abstract: After World War II, Japanese has achieved fruitful results in local historical studies targeting a certain administrative region or a historical region. During the early postwar period, in order to clear the influence of “Kōkoku shikan” and satisfy the needs of history education, the academic circles began to promote the study of local history. The establishment of the Local History Research Council provides a platform for collaboration between different regional history researchers. The study of local history in the early postwar period criticized the study of local history before the war, and then took historical materialism as the basic theoretical framework, focusing on the study of social economic history. The study of local history in Japan developed rapidly around 1970. Local history research associations were established one after another. Great achievements have been made in the fields of excavation, preservation, and public activities of local historical materials.Methods and theories have also formed a certain system. Since the end of the 1980s, local history research has changed a lot in terms of purpose, method, and perspective. It also gradually liberated itself from the status of being attached to the overall history, and became more selfreliant. Nevertheless, there were also many problems, such as the onesidedness in data collection and mixed quality of research.

Key words: Japan, local historical studies, the Local History Research Council