What is the currency of Japan?
Answer
Yen
The currency of Japan is the yen. It is Japan’s official monetary unit, written as 円 in Japanese and commonly represented by the ¥ symbol or the international code JPY.
Japan introduced the modern yen through the New Currency Act of 1871 during the Meiji period. The reform replaced a complicated mixture of Tokugawa-era coins and feudal paper currencies with a decimal system. The yen was originally divided into 100 sen and 1,000 rin, although those smaller units are no longer used in everyday transactions.
The Bank of Japan, founded in 1882, is responsible for issuing and managing Japan’s currency. Today, common coins range from ¥1 to ¥500, while frequently used banknotes include ¥1,000, ¥5,000, and ¥10,000. The yen is also one of the world’s major traded and reserve currencies.
A common mix-up is confusing the yen with China’s yuan or South Korea’s won. Their symbols and historical connections can look similar, but each is a separate national currency.