Azuki is one of the twelve most important grain legumes in the world and is grown widely in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. It has also been produced or studied in several other countries, including the USA (Minnesota and Washington States), Argentina and Australia. In Japan, azuki is an essential ingredient of both seki-han, a festive rice dish, and an, a sweetened bean paste. Botanically, it formerly belonged to the genus Phaseolus, but it has recently been transferred to the genus Vigna with relatives such as mungbean, black gram and rice bean. This book is the first comprehensive work on this crop. It draws extensively on the Chinese, Japanese and other East Asian literature and is based on a review of approximately 800 published references. It is a definitive reference work that should greatly enhance interest in the crop. It is aimed at researchers throughout the world working on grain legumes, as well as others in agronomy and plant science.