Chrysanthemum seal (imperial crest)

The crest of Japan’s imperial family: a chrysanthemum seen from the front, with sixteen petals and the tips of a second row between them. The same flower is on the cover of the Japanese passport.

Japanese symbols. Also called chrysanthemum seal, chrysanthemum throne, imperial seal of japan, japanese imperial crest, kiku crest.

Meaning

Nippon.com describes the chrysanthemum as the emblem of the imperial family. In the Meiji period a design of a chrysanthemum with sixteen double petals became the official imperial crest, and the Imperial Household Ceremony Regulations of 1926 fixed it in a detailed diagram. Chamberlain in 1905 and Joly in 1908 both give the sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum as the imperial badge; Chamberlain adds that the family has a second crest, the paulownia. The crest belongs to the imperial house today. It also appears, with sixteen petals, on Japanese passports, and a chrysanthemum crest 150 centimetres across is on the gate of Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo (Nippon.com). It is one of the kamon, Japan’s crests.

Origin and history

Nippon.com gives the usual account of how the flower became the emperor’s: Emperor Go-Toba (reigned 1183–98) liked the design and used it often, and the chrysanthemum is thought to have become the imperial crest in the early Kamakura period through his influence. It was not always the emperor’s alone. Joly records that the warlord Hideyoshi is thought to have used it, and that the crest of the warrior Kusunoki was a chrysanthemum half hidden by waves, the kikusui.

Shrines and the chrysanthemum

Because the chrysanthemum was the imperial crest, Kokugakuin University’s Encyclopedia of Shinto explains, very few shrines used it before the modern period. In 1879 the government allowed the nationally endowed shrines (kankokuheisha) to use it, and the number of shrines with the crest rose quickly. The paulownia went the other way. Long an imperial symbol too, it was a favourite of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and many shrines received his “Hideyoshi paulownia”; most shrine paulownia crests today are the “five-three” kind, with five blossoms and three.

The flower behind the crest

Chrysanthemums came to Japan from China around the Heian period, Nippon.com notes, and the Chrysanthemum Festival (Chōyō no sekku) is held on 9 September. White chrysanthemums are a standard floral offering. One cultivated variety, the ichimonji, with flat blooms and hull-shaped petals, is called gomonshō-giku because it looks like the imperial crest. For the flower’s meanings in the Victorian language of flowers, see chrysanthemum.

Sources

Nippon.com, The Chrysanthemum: Japan’s Fall Flower and Imperial Symbol, “The Chrysanthemum: Japan’s Fall Flower and Imperial Symbol”, Japan Data, Nippon.com (Nippon Communications Foundation), Nippon.com, article text and captions
Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese (1905), Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese: Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan, fifth edition, London: John Murray, 1905, John Murray (Internet Archive, University of Toronto copy), p. 222, “Heraldry”
Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art (1908), Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art: A Description of Historical Episodes, Legendary Characters, Folk-lore, Myths, Religious Symbolism Illustrated in the Arts of Old Japan, London: John Lane, 1908, John Lane (Internet Archive, University of Toronto copy), no. 455, “Kiku”
Shinmon (Encyclopedia of Shinto), Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University, “Shinmon” (Inoue Nobutaka), Kokugakuin University, entry text

The same shape elsewhere

Browse symbols formed from circles.

Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research

Added October 10, 2026.

Report a problem