The map of the prefecture in black and the volcano Sakurajima as a red circle: the flag of Kagoshima was approved in 1967 after a competition.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
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 with a 2:3 ratio, white, with a black drawing and a red circle in the centre.
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.
The emblem was approved on 10 March 1967
In 1994 the prefecture created a second modern mark —a blue “K” formed from curves of wind…
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Kagoshima is a map drawn in cloth: on a white field, a black shape like a horseshoe upside down represents the two peninsulas of the prefecture, and the red circle in the centre is Sakurajima, the most active volcano in Japan.
The emblem was approved on 10 March 1967, after a public competition open to the whole world. The black figure draws the peninsulas of Satsuma and Ōsumi, between which the capital appears, and the gap on the right marks the Bay of Shibushi. According to the prefecture and the national association of regional governments, the whole thing symbolises the growth of Kagoshima and the passion, the harmony and the unity of its people.
The flag has not changed since 1967, although it very nearly lost its drawing. In 1994 the prefecture created a second modern mark —a blue “K” formed from curves of wind and waves — and in the late nineties several members of the assembly proposed putting it on the flag instead of the map. The idea died because many people were attached to the usual emblem.
This is the prefecture’s official explanation:
Black shape
the peninsulas of Satsuma and Ōsumi, the relief of Kagoshima seen from the air.
Gap on the right
the Bay of Shibushi, to the east.
Red circle
Sakurajima, which the locals call “the island of fire”.
White ground
it has no documented official meaning.
The flag only draws the continental part, but Kagoshima is also islands: Amami, Tokunoshima, Yoron, Yakushima… The folklorist Toshimi Shimone denounced the fact that leaving them out reflected centuries of neglect towards their inhabitants.
In 2009 the astronaut Koichi Wakata carried a flag with the modern symbol of wind and waves aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
Sakurajima erupts so often that the ash regularly covers the capital; the red dot on the flag is a noisy neighbour.
Test what you have read about the flag of Kagoshima.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Guilherme Paula, Mike Rohsopht, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
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