Citizen Watches

Citizen’s story began in 1918 when Kamekichi Yakamazi formed the Shokosha Watch Research Institute. An organization whose goal was to research and create pocket watches—the time’s equivalent of a mechanical watch.

The company officially started its story in 1924, when they sold their first model, the caliber 16 pocket watch. —Better yet known as the Citizen. Soon after, the company was sold, and a change of name occurred. The shareholders decided on the name “Citizen” because of 2 reasons; the first being the company's roots or simply put their first watch. The second was because the name is naturally appealing in all languages. So, through consistent innovations, the company soon became a favorite of the officials and leaders of Japan at the time. But it wasn't until the introduction of the Eco-drive technology in 1995 that the brand finally attained their Big Break. The technology is a crowd favorite since it's quite literally the best union of solar energy and rechargeable batteries so far in the watchmaking industry.

Citizen mainly provides watches that blur the line between traditional when you see their clean dials and modern, with the help of their eco-drive technology. The norm is to see both of these factors in all of their watches, so here are a few of the brand’s highlights.

The ‘Citizen’ Chronomaster is often lauded as the most accurate watch in the world that you don't know about. And it's all because of the watch’s internals. The Chronomaster belongs to the High Accuracy Quartz (HAQ) tier—which means it can keep time better than any mechanical or quartz watch out there. In simpler terms, the Chronomaster has an error rate of ±5 seconds a year. For certain groups of watch enthusiasts that prefer accuracy and precision, it's a gold mine when compared to the error rate of ±5 seconds a day experienced in automatic watches.

The Citizen duo refers to the Skyhawk and Nighthawk—2 of the best-selling watches Citizen has made.

Skyhawk is a Citizen watch that makes watches for pilots—or at the least, people with the same interest. Skyhawk collection holds watches with features such as; perpetual calendars, alarms, countdown timers, UTC displays and compatibility with up to 43 world cities, and a pilot's rotating slide rule bezel. As expected, all of these features run on an Eco-drive caliber.

The Nighthawk is the other highly popular watch from Citizen that's specked out for pilots. It's considered to be the kid brother of the Skyhawk; mainly because the audience, this time around are travelers. So, it comes with a toned-down version of the features of a Skyhawk. Time zones in a Promaster Nighthawk are limited to 2 and the detailed dial, coupled with the iconic internal slide rule bezel is present.

The Promaster series is home to watches geared towards car race enthusiasts and adventure lovers. Air, land, and sea—the series is an iconic player in the chase to satisfy watch enthusiasts who're always on the move. Features such as 1/5-second chronographs, alarms, tachymeters, water-resistant cases (up to 1,000 m with the Promaster Professional Diver), and one-way rotating elapsed time bezels easily meet the interests of the audience.

Created for people who want a beater watch. The Chandler is militaristic in design and thus, aesthetic appeal and build quality. Model AT0200-05E is one of the most popular men’s Citizen watches. The stainless-steel watch houses a caliber H500, uses a strap for its lightweight nature instead of leather bands, and makes proper use of bold Arabic numerals to create a clean design.

The first of the Citizen Eco-drive watches was the Crystron Solar Cell and it was the world's first analog quartz watch that was solar-powered. Also, in 1993, Citizen launched the first Atomic Timekeeping (AT) watch. It was popularized due to its ability to keep time extremely well. At the time, the AT watch had a margin error of just 1 second in 100,000 years. Almost 3 decades later, AT watches now have a margin error of 1 second in 20 million years. The brand also invented the Deployment Clasp with a Push Button (otherwise known as DCP clasp) that's common throughout their watches. But it was their ingenious combination of leather straps with the same technology that got it critical acclaim.

Citizen’s watches are staples of precision and accuracy, to an extent that the watchmaker is one of the timekeepers of major sports competitions. The brand sponsors the likes of the US Open, World Figure Skating Championship, and certain sports icons/individuals.

Between men and women’s Citizen watches, the brand has various collections filled with watches to satisfy the average consumer. This includes the budget-friendly prices that we made sure to emulate at Watchshopping.com.