Last modified: 2023-06-03 by zachary harden
Keywords: akita | japan | katanaka: a |
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image by Kazutaka Nishiura, 22 May 2017 |
White stylized Katakana character of A (ア) of Akita on wine red colour field which represent rapid progress of Akita. The prefecture emblem and the flag were adopted on Nov 3rd 1959 by Notice No.
380. The flag proportion is 7: 10. The hoist should be placed at right side.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 6 May 1998 and 21 March 2015 and Jan Oskar Engene, 3 May 1996
In a brief exchange with the Akita Prefecture Government Facebook
page, ran by the Public Relations Department of Akita Prefecture, I
was able to receive information about the colors of the prefecture
flag. To quote their message to me on December 1st, "We usually use "CMYK" ,so
don't know color code expressed by Munsell Color Code. CMYK is below:
C:40 M:100 Y:70 K:10".
Zachary Harden, 4 December 2017
The first picture shows a flag with the Akita prefectural emblem shown
normally (not reversed) on the side of the flag that has the hoist to
the right. The kanji is in the top hoist of the flag, that is, above
and to the right of the emblem. The second picture shows a flag with
hoist to the left, and the emblem shown reversed. It's not clear
whether there is any writing on the flag, but it could well be the
other side of a flag like the one in the first picture.
Both pictures are definitely evidence of the Akita emblem used on
flags in a way that treats the sinister-hoisted side as the obverse. Ok, this sounds like a possibly confusing situation. Let's see if we
can spell it out in more detail.
Jonathan Dixon, 10 November 2017
Let's dive into the laws: according to the Akita Prefecture Law Database, there are two laws regarding the prefecture flag and emblem. The first one, "Determination of Prefecture Emblem and Prefecture Flag" (Akita Prefecture Notice No. 380: November 3rd, 1959/Showa 34) determines what the symbols are. The law shows the following for the flag:
"Prefecture flag
Dimension vertical 140 cm, 200 cm wide (7x10 ratio to match the national flag)
(Depending on the mode of use, it may be expanded or reduced according
to the aspect ratio mentioned above.)
Prefecture emblem color: white
Flag ground color: red brown"
This tells us nothing about the flag orientation for hoisting. The second law, "Determination of Prefecture Emblem and Prefecture Flag Accompanying Decision: Construction Methods for the Prefecture Flag" (Akita Prefecture Notification No. 371: August 27, 1960/Showa 35) gives the construction details for the prefecture flag. For our purposes, I want to paste part two of the construction law. My Japanese is decent, but not that good, so I will post both the Japanese and English translation here:
Japanese - "二: つりひも つりひもは県旗の右側の上下につく。ただし、使用の態様によつては、この限りでない。"
image by Kazutaka Nishiura and Zachary Harden, 4 December 2017
During a vocational competition in 2013, there was an opening ceremony
that had all competitors carry their prefecture flags in. For Akita
Prefecture, a variant of the prefecture flag was used. The same
background color is used, however the prefecture symbol was made smaller and the
kanji "Akita-Ken" is below the prefecture symbol. Both the symbol and
text are in white. However, the hoist of the flag is where we would
traditionally see it (viewer left) instead of the
prefecture-legislated viewer's right for the hoist position.
Zachary Harden, 4 December 2017
Here is the flag of the Akita Prefecture Police; it is the prefecture
flag charged with the police emblem on the prefecture emblem. There is also a variant of the flag with text below the (smaller) emblem.
Zachary Harden, 30 November 2017