Japan Flag

How to identify it

A plain white field with one red disc exactly in the centre. It has no border, rays or other emblem. Bangladesh and Palau place their discs slightly toward the flagpole side and use coloured fields.

Design and construction

Proportions

2:3

Adoption and legal status

13 August 1999, when the Act on National Flag and Anthem gave the design statutory form

Construction

The disc is centred and its diameter is three fifths of the flag's height.

Officially documented meaning

The 1999 Act specifies the geometry and the colours (white and crimson) but states no symbolic meaning.

Commonly repeated interpretation

Not official: The disc is widely understood as the sun, matching the name Nisshōki, meaning sun-mark flag, and the nickname Hinomaru, meaning circle of the sun.

History of the design

Sun discs appear on Japanese banners for centuries. An 1870 Meiji regulation prescribed a 7:10 flag with the disc shifted one hundredth of the length toward the flagpole side; the 1999 Act moved the disc to the true centre and changed the proportions to 2:3.

Similar flags

Compare the details that separate these designs.

• 
  Bangladesh

  Bangladesh uses a dark green field and places its red disc off-centre toward the flagpole side.

• 
  Palau

  Palau uses a light blue field with an off-centre yellow disc.

Comparison guides

• Japan vs Bangladesh vs Palau: telling the three disc flags apart

Sources