Three gourds form a white O on blue: the emblem of Osaka copies the standard of Hideyoshi and its ground changed from green to blue in 1984.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
CivilFIAV 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 in blue. In the centre there is a white emblem, not a coat of arms: an “O” formed by joined round gourds, each with a blue circle in the middle.
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 flag was approved on 21 June 1968
Sixteen years later the prefecture changed the ground: the blue version was made official…
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Osaka is blue, with a white “O” in the centre which, looked at slowly, comes apart into three gourds. It is not an ornament: that drawing mixes the initial of the name with the favourite standard of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the lord who turned Osaka into a great commercial centre in the late sixteenth century.
The flag was approved on 21 June 1968, on the centenary of prefectural government. The emblem starts from the sennari hyōtan, Hideyoshi’s gourd: an O divided into three, each branch with an official meaning —hope, harmony and prosperity—. The field was green, because the white of the emblem was to read as infinite possibility and the green as freshness and vitality.
Sixteen years later the prefecture changed the ground: the blue version was made official on 30 March 1984 and came into use on 1 April. The new colour represented cleanliness, freshness and intelligence, and above all recalled that Osaka is the “city of water”: full of rivers, open to two seas and reachable by sea and by sky.
It has changed only once, and it was the colour of the ground, not the drawing.
1968-1984
First version, with a green ground, created for the centenary of the prefecture. The emblem was already Hideyoshi’s gourd-O.
1984
The field becomes blue, a wink to the city of water; the emblem is not touched and so it remains today.
Three gourds
the sennari hyōtan standard of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, founder of the great commercial Osaka (official explanation).
The O split into three
the initial of the name; its three branches are hope, harmony and prosperity, according to the prefecture.
Blue
the “city of water” —rivers and two seas— and an international city, clean and intelligent (official explanation).
White
the colour of the emblem; in 1968 it was presented as a symbol of infinite possibility.
Osaka has been Japan’s host for universal expositions: Expo 70, in Suita, was the first in Asia, and Expo 2025, from 13 April to 13 October, drew almost 29 million visitors.
According to specialists in standards, those of Hideyoshi were an upside-down golden gourd and a war fan; the famous thousand gourds were used, one theory holds, as a naval emblem.
Until 1968, at large national events Osaka used a flag with the logo of its 1949 sports association: a running track with the word Osaka in the centre.
Test what you have read about the flag of Osaka.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Shane Markle (OsgoodeLawyer) , Mike Rohsopht, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
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