Seki

Seki, in Gifu Prefecture, has made blades for roughly 800 years. Swordsmithing began there in the Kamakura period, when a smith from Yamato Province settled in the area, and by the Muromachi era Seki was one of Japan’s leading centers for sword production, rated alongside Kyoto. When peace in the Edo period cut demand for swords, many of Seki’s smiths became nokaji — field smiths — and turned to everyday tools such as kitchen knives, razors, and farm implements.

Today Seki is one of the world’s three major cutlery-producing cities, alongside Solingen in Germany and Sheffield in England. Around 300 businesses in and around the city work in the trade, and Seki accounts for roughly half of Japan’s cutlery exports. Its output leans toward machine-assisted production of Western-style double-bevel knives — gyuto, santoku, and paring knives built for export markets — as well as scissors, razors, and pocket knives. This is the contrast usually drawn with Sakai, which stayed closer to hand forging and to single-bevel knives for Japanese professional kitchens. “Seki knives” is a regional brand certified by the Japan Patent Office.