Japanese Map Symbols (Chizu Kigō): How to Read Them, With Diagrams

The core idea: a small drawing of what you find there

The standard symbols come from the topographic maps of the Kokudo Chiriin (国土地理院), literally 'national land geography institute', the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. You meet the same symbols on school maps and on many area boards outside station exits, often labelled genzaichi (現在地), literally 'present location', meaning you are here.

Each symbol works in one of three ways. Some are characters: 文 for a school, 卍 for a temple. Some are objects: crossed batons for a police box, a torii gate for a shrine, a fork-shaped pole for a fire station. A few are plain codes, such as the circles for local government offices. On top of that sits one useful rule: a circle added around a symbol, or inside it, usually marks the larger facility. The three pairs in the diagram show it in pink.

UnihongoKanji

現在地げんざいちはここです。You are here.

Fifteen symbols and where they come from

Knowing where a symbol comes from is what lets you recall it on the street. Where the origin is only the traditional explanation, the table says so.

Pairs that are easy to confuse

Most confusion comes from pairs that share a shape. The circle rule sorts out three of them, and knowing what each place does sorts out the rest.

• Kōban and keisatsusho. The kōban, literally 'taking turns on watch', is a small post near stations and busy corners where officers work in shifts. The circled X is the keisatsusho, the district's main station. For directions or a lost item, the nearest plain X is usually enough.
• Shiyakusho and chōson yakuba. The double circle is a city hall, where residents register an address. The single circle is the office of a town or village. The inner ring is the difference.
• Shō-chūgakkō and kōtō gakkō. A bare 文 is a primary or junior high school; 文 in a circle is a high school.
• Jinja and jiin. The torii marks a Shinto shrine and 卍 a Buddhist temple. In speech, a temple is otera, and people rarely say jiin.
• The post office symbol and the postcode mark. On a map, 〒 inside a circle is a post office. Plain 〒 in front of a number on an envelope introduces a postcode.
• The map ◎ and the rating ◎. Nijūmaru (二重丸), literally 'double circle', means excellent on menus, surveys and school work. On a map it is only a city hall.

Following directions on a map

Because streets are unnamed, a Japanese route is a chain of landmarks and turns. Say you have just arrived at an unfamiliar station and need the ward office, so you ask a station attendant at the exit. The diagram shows the kind of answer you will get: out of the station, straight on past the police box, right at the post office corner, and the place is on the side opposite the school. Mukaigawa is literally 'facing side'; temae, literally 'hand front', means just before a landmark.

UnihongoKanji

すみません、区役所くやくしょはどこですか。Excuse me, where is the ward office?

Map words versus spoken words

Map labels use formal, written names; people talking use shorter, everyday ones. A temple is jiin on the map but otera in speech. A kōtō gakkō is a kōkō, and a keisatsusho is usually just keisatsu. Friends giving directions by phone drop particles and politeness and lean on the same landmarks. Here a friend is guiding you from the station to her flat.

In speech the favourite landmark is the convenience store, which has no standard symbol; maps favour shrines, temples and schools because they rarely move, while shops come and go. The kanji on the signs you pass along the way, such as the ones for north and exit, are covered in a separate post on kanji for directions and signs, and printed notices in another on reading Japanese signs.

Beyond the basics: land-use symbols and newer additions

Standard maps also mark what covers the land. Rice paddies are rows of short double lines, said to be the stubble left after harvest; dry fields are a small sprouting seedling; tea fields are three dots like a cluster of seeds. Whole areas are filled with repeated marks, as in the lower right of the route diagram.

The set changes slowly. The library and museum symbols were added in 2002. In 2006 the nursing home and wind turbine symbols were chosen from designs sent in by primary and junior high school students. In 2019 a symbol was added for shizen saigai denshōhi, stone monuments that record past floods, tsunamis and other disasters. Separately, in 2016 the authority published alternative symbols for maps aimed at foreign visitors, such as an envelope for a post office; standard maps kept the traditional set. Out hiking with a printed map, you might hear this.

Common mistakes when reading Japanese maps

Reading 卍 as a hate symbol. The resemblance alarms many visitors. On a Japanese map it marks a Buddhist temple, a meaning centuries older than the Nazi emblem, which faces the other way and is tilted.

Reading X as danger or a closed road. Elsewhere in Japan an X, batsu, means wrong or not allowed, so the reaction is understandable. On a map it is a police box and the best place to ask the way.

Taking ◎ as a recommendation. After seeing nijūmaru on menus, visitors expect the double circle to mark something good. It marks a city hall.

Waiting for street names. Directions like 'walk to Third Avenue' rarely work in Japan. Ask for landmarks and listen for kado, corner, shingō, traffic light, and tsukiatari, the end of the road.

Expecting every map to use these symbols. Apps and tourist maps use their own icons. The traditional set is most reliable on government maps and on area boards near stations.