Koto (instrument)
traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument
The koto (箏 or 琴) is a Japanese plucked half-tube zither instrument, and the national instrument of Japan. It is derived from the Chinese zheng and se, and similar to the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and ajaeng, the Vietnamese đàn tranh, the Sundanese kacapi and the Kazakh jetigen. Koto are roughly 180 centimetres (6 ft) in length, and made from Paulownia wood (Paulownia tomentosa, known as kiri). The most common type uses 13 strings strung over movable bridges used for tuning, different pieces possibly requiring different tuning. Seventeen-string koto are also common, and act as bass in ensembles. Koto strings are generally plucked using three fingerpicks (tsume), worn on the first three fingers of the right hand.
Names and types
The character for koto is 箏, although 琴 is often used. However, 琴 (koto) is the general term for all string instruments in the Japanese language, including instruments such as the kin no koto, sō no koto, yamato-goto, wagon, nanagen-kin, and so on. When read as kin, it indicates the Chinese instrument guqin. The term is used today in the same way.
“Koto (instrument)” enters the record as traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Koto, instrument and traditional can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q289037. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Koto (instrument)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.