Mitsui family

Mitsui family 三井家
Yotsumeyui (四つ目結)
Home province	Ōmi Province
Titles	Baron
Founder	Mitsui Takatoshi
Final ruler	Takakimi Mitsui
Current head	Hisanori Mitsui
Founding year	1673
Ruled until	1946 (zaibatsu dissolved)

The Mitsui family (三井家, Mitsui-ke) is one of the most powerful families of merchants and industrialists in Japan.

The Mitsui enterprise (present-day Mitsui Group) was established in 1673 when Mitsui Takatoshi (1622–1694), the son of merchant parents, established Echigoya, a dry goods department store in both Edo and Kyoto, which later became the Mitsukoshi department store chain. Meeting with great success, Takatoshi extended his services to moneylending and exchange.

In the late Edo period, the Mitsuis were the richest and most eminent family in Japan, their business being thoroughly encouraged by the shogunal government of the time. After the Meiji Restoration, the family switched allegiance to the Meiji government.

In 1909, a Mitsui controlled holding company took over the business, with Mitsui thus becoming a zaibatsu (business conglomerate) of more than 150 companies, and in modern times the group counts dozens of multinational companies in fields such as trade, banking, shipping and shipbuilding, construction, mining, oil and gas, insurance, chemicals and real estate development.