♨ the hot spring symbol

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♨

Today we're going to talk about the hot spring symbol.

The hot spring symbol is a half-circle that resembles a bath, with three wispy wisps of steam rising up from it. In Japan, it is also used as a map symbol.

The origins of the hot spring symbol date back to the Edo period, 1661. The symbol appears in documents written by the Edo shogunate.

The hot spring symbol as a map symbol first appeared in the Meiji period, when Japan began to modernize and make maps. The first onsen marks had straight lines for the steam, and did not have the wavy lines that we are used to seeing today.

However, a few years later, the marks changed to have wavy steam, like the ones we know today.
However, a few years after that, for the reason that they were "easy to draw", the marks changed back to having straight lines, and the onsen marks continued to have straight lines for the steam through the Meiji, Taisho and Showa periods.

The current version of the hot spring symbol, with its wavy steam, first appeared in 2002, when the Geographical Survey Institute began using computers to create maps.

Incidentally,
this hot spring symbol is popular with foreigners visiting Japan,
and the same symbol is also used in South Korea and Taiwan. 

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