A red seven-pointed star on a blue ground: the flag of Hokkaido comes from the standard of the colonisers of the island, born on a ship in 1872.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
Civil and stateFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.
It is a rectangular field —the cloth of the flag —with a 2:3 ratio, dark blue, with a red seven-pointed star in the centre, surrounded by a white halo.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
Every date in its story, at a glance.
That standard was born on the ship that carried the colonists, had been official since February…
When the Commission was abolished in 1882 the flag disappeared with it: between 1882 and 1967
In the 1960s the Japanese prefectures were giving each other flags
The committee received more than 7500 design proposals and on 31 March 1967 chose…
In 1992, to simplify the identity of the government and avoid confusion
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Hokkaido is a dark blue field with a red seven-pointed star surrounded by a halo of white light. It is the standard of the largest and northernmost prefecture of Japan, and its star recalls the one carried by the colonisers who occupied the island in the nineteenth century.
In the 1960s the Japanese prefectures were giving each other flags, and Hokkaido wanted one of its own for the centenary of the colonisation of the island. The committee received more than 7500 design proposals and on 31 March 1967 chose the one by Kenichi Kuriyagawa, director of the Hokkaido Institute of Design. On 1 May it was made official by prefecture notification number 775, with the name Emblem and Flag of Hokkaido.
The design looked to the past: the star came from the Hokushin, the blue flag with a red star of the Colonisation Commission, the body that governed the island in its early days. That standard was born on the ship that carried the colonists, had been official since February 1872, and the Commission stopped using it in 1878. When the Commission was abolished in 1882 the flag disappeared with it: between 1882 and 1967, Hokkaido had no symbol of its own.
The current flag has only one version: it appeared in 1967 and has not changed since.
1872-1878
The Hokushin, flag of the Colonisation Commission: a red five-pointed star on a blue ground, taken from the standard of the colonists’ ship.
1967
The new flag turned the old star into a seven-pointed one and added a halo of light to it. In 1992, to simplify the identity of the government and avoid confusion, the emblem also became its logo.
This is Hokkaido’s own official interpretation:
Blue
the sea and the sky of the north.
Red seven-pointed star
the indomitable energy of the people of the island.
White light around the star
the brilliance, the wind and the snow of Hokkaido.
Seven points
they modernise the five-pointed star of the old flag of the colonisers and represent the future.
The star of Hokkaido comes from the standard that the ship of the colonisers carried on its mast, made the symbol of the Colonisation Commission in 1872.
Back in 1872, Kuroda Kiyotaka, head of the Commission, asked for the five-pointed star to be changed for a seven-pointed one. The government refused; the 1967 flag finally gave him his wish.
The 1967 rule fixes the colours of the flag, but leaves the emblem without mandatory colours: each use can paint it however it likes.
Test what you have read about the flag of Hokkaido.
Text based on the article “Bandera de Hokkaidō” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Monaneko, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
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