Noritake Co., Limited is one of the pottery maker. The company's head office is in Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
In Nagoya, Japan in 1904, Ichizaemon Morimura founded Nippon Toki Kaisha, Ltd., the forerunner of Noritake China. Morimura produced the first white porcelain dinner plate in 1914, as well as the first bone china in Japan in 1932.
During World War II, Morimura's factory was heavily damaged, and production was greatly reduced. Between 1946 and 1948, the company sold china under the name Rose China, a product which did not match in quality to the original. High quality was restored by 1948, and Noritake China Company, Inc., was established for selling tableware in the United States. During the next 30 years, manufacturing and distribution facilities were created in Australia, Canada, the UK, Sri Lanka, Guam, Ireland, and the Philippines. Since 1981, the company has produced tableware under the name Noritake Company Limited.
Although consumers and collectors alike have called these wares, "Noritake" (and/or simply, "Nippon") since the late 1920s, the Japanese parent company did not officially change its name to the Noritake Co., Limited until 1981. Evidently, since Noritake is the name of a place, the company was initially prohibited from registering the name as a trade name.