Rising sun image

[ghettocities]

Does anyone know why Japan has the regular red and white flag but then also they've got the Rising Sun one where it was what looks like red sun-rays shooting out from the main red circle of the flag? Does it represent anything? Probably something used in war huh?

Thanks,

Josh

 

[Grandpa Frank]

War Flag

I was told the flag with red rays was military.

Frank

 

[jeisan]

i thought that they took the rays of after WWII...

 

[bz_jpn]

The white flag with a red circle was adopted as National flag in the Meiji era . In comparison, the flag which has a red circle and 16 rays were used by the Japanese Imperial Navy as warship flag. But during WWII Japanese Army also used this. And now it is used by Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force as you see in the picture below.

 

[jeisan]

oh i see, kinda like australia has 2 flags one for the land, the main one that you see, and the other for sea, its red instead of blue around the stars.

 

[maji]

I think http://www.worldmap.com has a lot of information about country flags as well

 

[Eisuke]

The difference between the Japanese Navy flag is that the is sun slightly more to the left, while the Japanese Army flag has the sun in the centre.