
Mazda Motor Corporation is a Japanese automaker based in Fuchū, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.
In 2007, Mazda produced almost 1.3 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly 1 million) were produced in the company's Japanese plants, with the remainder coming from a variety of other plants worldwide. In 2011, Mazda was the fifteenth biggest automaker by production worldwide.
The company website states that name "derives from Ahura Mazda, a god of the earliest civilizations in Empire of Persia...the god of wisdom, intelligence, and harmony..." Ahura Mazda is the Iranian – Zoroastrian God. The company website also notes that the name "also derives from the name of our founder, Jujiro Matsuda."