The mountain kanji written with three people inside a white Fuji on a grape-coloured field: the flag of Yamanashi dates from 1966.
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 7:10 ratio in purple, with a white mountain silhouette in the centre and, inside it, a yellow character.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Yamanashi is purple, the colour of the grapes that made this prefecture famous, next to Mount Fuji. In the centre, a yellow 山 —the kanji for “mountain”— inside the white silhouette of the volcano.
In 1966 the prefecture called a public competition to create its emblem; the design used today was the one chosen, approved on 1 October. The flag came two months later, on 1 December 1966, with the same kanji but a different frame: the official emblem surrounds it with a pointed lozenge, while the flag encloses it in a trapezium that is pure Fuji.
It has not changed since 1966.
山 (yellow)
read officially as three times the character 人 (“person”): people united and cooperating to form a mountain.
Purple
the colour of the grape, the prefecture’s star product (official interpretation).
White
the Fuji that surrounds the people: purity and honesty, and its curves express fluidity and limitless improvement (official interpretation).
The kanji 山 of the flag, according to the official reading, is not just a mountain: they are three 人 characters, “person”, set in a row.
In the official emblem, the same 山 sits inside a toothed lozenge taken from the arms of the Takeda clan, the lords who ruled these lands centuries ago; on the flag, inside Fuji.
Test what you have read about the flag of Yamanashi.
Flag image: UnreifeKirsche, Mike Rohsopht, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
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