Yanmar Co., Ltd. (ヤンマー株式会社 Yanmā Kabushiki-Gaisha?) is a Japanese company involved in the manufacture and sales of engines, agricultural machinery and light ships. Yanmar's headquarters are at 1-32 Chayamachi in the Kita ward of the Japanese city of Osaka. Yanmar is the patron of the J. League soccer team Cerezo Osaka and for the Yanbo Marbo weather forecast programme on Japanese television. Originally, the company planned to trade under the name "Tonbo", meaning "dragonfly", as dragonflies are a symbol of agriculture in Japan. However, this trademark was already registered to a Shizuoka soy sauce maker. Therefore, the name was changed to "Oniyanma" (Anotogaster sieboldii), the largest of all dragonflies in Japan. It is said that in the end, the name was also selected because it sounded similar to the surname of the company's founder, Yamaoka Magokichi. It is likely that the "oni" was dropped because it means "devil" or "demon" in Japanese. Yanmar is for the most part a corporation specializing in diesel engines, and also makes light fishing boats. In recent years Yanmar has started sales of hulls for ships. Manufacturing tractors, combine harvesters, rice-planting machines, and Heavy Utility Machinery. Yanmar ranks along with Kubota and Iseki & Co. as one of the top brands of agricultural machinery in Japan. Yanmar was the first to put a diesel engine in a rice planting machine with a passenger seat. Yanmar's flagship product in the construction machinery business is light hydraulic shovels. In recent years, Yanmar has also manufactured snow removal machines for industrial and domestic use.
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Media programmes sponsored by Yanmar
ProductsReferencesMuch of the content of this article comes from the corresponding Japanese-language Wikipedia article (retrieved April 6, 2006). Related LinksExternal links
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