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Japanese Prefecture Flags Quiz

Drag the flags of all 47 prefectures of Japan onto a flat map, three tries each. No labels.

Mon and stylised kana: how prefectures draw themselves

Japanese prefectural flags do not use stripes, crosses or coats of arms. Almost every one is a single-colour field with one emblem in the centre, in the same spirit as the family crests, the mon, that have stood on Japanese banners for centuries. Most were adopted in the 1960s, when prefectures were choosing symbols for the postwar era, and all forty-seven on this map follow the convention: one colour, one mark, no writing that a stranger could read.

The mark is usually the prefecture's name in a stylised script. Kanagawa's red emblem on white is the character kami, the first of its name. Kyoto folds the character kyo into a gold six-petalled flower on purple. Gifu squares off the character gi inside a green ring, and Okayama does the same with oka in gold on purple. Kana are just as common: Fukushima's orange field carries the hiragana fu drawn as a loop, Mie's green field the hiragana mi curled around a pearl (the prefecture is the home of cultured pearls), Nara's maroon disc has the katakana na cut out of it, and Tottori bends the hiragana to into a bird taking flight, a pun on a name that means bird-catcher. Nagasaki uses the Latin alphabet: its blue N on white is drawn as a dove of peace.

Mountains, bays and the shape of the land

The rest draw the land itself. Aomori simply prints the green outline of the prefecture on white, the only flag on the map that is a map. Kagoshima's black ring on white is Kagoshima Bay between the Satsuma and Osumi peninsulas, with the volcano Sakurajima as a red disc at its heart. Yamagata, whose name means mountain shape, shows three white peaks on blue; Toyama a green two-peaked mountain for the Tateyama range. Mount Fuji appears twice, because the mountain straddles a border: Shizuoka draws it in orange above the curve of Suruga Bay on blue, Yamanashi in white on magenta, with three characters for person joined in the middle into the character for mountain.

Blossoms, beads, a gourd and a star

Ibaraki's white disc with a blue spiral is a rose bud seen from above, its prefectural flower; Ehime's white blossom with an orange centre is the flower of the mikan orange, set between two orange stripes on green; Fukuoka's five white loops on blue spell the hiragana fuku five times over and add up to a plum blossom. Saitama's ring of sixteen red magatama, comma-shaped beads dug up at ancient sites in the prefecture, sits on plain white. Osaka's white cluster of circles on blue is a gourd, after the thousand-gourd standard of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who built Osaka Castle. Hokkaido's seven-pointed white star with a red core on dark blue descends from the red star of the nineteenth-century commission that opened the island to settlement. Okinawa, whose flag dates from 1972, the year the islands returned to Japan, has a red disc holding a white ring and a smaller red disc: an O for Okinawa with the sea around it.

Purple fields and white rings: the ones that get confused

Colour is the first filter and it is never enough. Four flags are purple: Tokyo's white six-spoked emblem on the traditional Edo purple, Kyoto's gold flower, Gunma's three white crescents around a small seal (the crescents are the three mountains of Gunma: Akagi, Haruna and Myogi), and Okayama's gold ring. Yamanashi's magenta with a white Fuji is close enough to land on Kyoto by mistake.

Red fields with a white emblem are the largest family: Akita's swooping stroke with a dot (the katakana a), Hiroshima's double crescent (the katakana hi), Kochi's white ring with a leaf-like point inside, Kumamoto's disc with a wedge towards the hoist, and Aichi's bud in a circle on a darker crimson. Hiroshima and Kochi are the closest pair: Hiroshima's shape is open, two nested crescents, while Kochi's is a closed ring broken by a horizontal line. Shimane's four gold loops on dark red, four katakana ma, is the only one of the family in gold.

On blue, Osaka's gourd and Fukuoka's plum blossom are both white knots of loops: Osaka's four circles sit in a diamond, Fukuoka's five in a ring. Shiga wraps a white disc for Lake Biwa in two wings; Chiba's white star-shape has a thin gold edge that Shiga's does not. Hyogo's white waves on cyan are the character hyo drawn as the sea. Iwate and Saga share a teal field: Iwate's emblem is a white geometric kanji, Saga's a six-petalled white flower with a red centre. Kagoshima and Okinawa both put a disc inside a disc on white; the outer one is black in Kagoshima and red in Okinawa.

All 47 prefectures and their capitals

47 prefectures are on this map, listed in alphabetical order with their capitals — the same facts the Hint button draws on. All of them are in the deck.

1. AichiNagoya
2. AkitaAkita
3. AomoriAomori
4. ChibaChiba
5. EhimeMatsuyama
6. FukuiFukui
7. FukuokaFukuoka
8. FukushimaFukushima
9. GifuGifu
10. GunmaMaebashi
11. HiroshimaHiroshima
12. HokkaidoSapporo
13. HyogoKobe
14. IbarakiMito
15. IshikawaKanazawa
16. IwateMorioka
17. KagawaTakamatsu
18. KagoshimaKagoshima
19. KanagawaYokohama
20. KochiKochi
21. KumamotoKumamoto
22. KyotoKyoto
23. MieTsu
24. MiyagiSendai
25. MiyazakiMiyazaki
26. NaganoNagano
27. NagasakiNagasaki
28. NaraNara
29. NiigataNiigata
30. OitaOita
31. OkayamaOkayama
32. OkinawaNaha
33. OsakaOsaka
34. SagaSaga
35. SaitamaSaitama
36. ShigaOtsu
37. ShimaneMatsue
38. ShizuokaShizuoka
39. TochigiUtsunomiya
40. TokushimaTokushima
41. TokyoTokyo
42. TottoriTottori
43. ToyamaToyama
44. WakayamaWakayama
45. YamagataYamagata
46. YamaguchiYamaguchi
47. YamanashiKofu

Questions about these flags

What do the emblems on Japanese prefectural flags mean?

Most are the prefecture's name written in a stylised kanji, hiragana or katakana, and a few use a Latin letter: Nagasaki's N, Okinawa's O. The others picture something local: the shape of the prefecture (Aomori, Kagoshima), a mountain (Yamagata, Toyama, the two Fuji flags), the prefectural flower (Ibaraki, Ehime, Fukuoka) or a historic object such as Saitama's magatama beads.

Why is Tokyo's flag purple?

The field is Edo purple, a shade associated with the city under its old name, Edo, and the flag was adopted in 1964. The white emblem is a six-spoked sun radiating in six directions. Tokyo also has a newer green symbol shaped like a ginkgo leaf, used on signs and vehicles, but the flag on this map is the purple one.

Which prefectures show Mount Fuji, and how do you tell them apart?

Shizuoka and Yamanashi, the two prefectures the mountain straddles. Shizuoka's Fuji is orange on a blue field, with a white curve beneath it for Suruga Bay. Yamanashi's is a white silhouette on magenta with a small yellow mark in the middle. Shizuoka lies on the Pacific coast, Yamanashi is landlocked directly north of the mountain.

More maps

Other maps: US states, Australian states, Ukrainian oblasts, UK counties, French regions, Spanish regions, Italian regions, Brazilian states, Polish voivodeships, German states, Dutch provinces, Swedish counties, Canadian provinces, Mexican states, Argentine provinces, Swiss cantons. All 235 flags of the world with their capitals: Flags of the world · all modes.