The japanese are voracious readers. With annual sales approaching $10 billion, the japanese retail bookselling industry is approximately as large as the US bookselling industry on a per-capita basis as of 2008. Despite the fact that the population of japan is only half that of the United States, Japan has approximately 17,000 retail book stores compared to the 11,000 book stores in the United States. Most of the largest book stores in japan have been in existence since the world war 2 era, if not earlier-Maruzen (www.maruzen.co.jp [japanese] or www.maruzen.co.jp/corp/en [English]), one of the largest booksellers in japan, has been in business since 1869.