🈁

Japanese “here” button

juh-puh-NEEZ heer BUT-n
Symbols Unicode 0.6 rare

Meanings

1
Symbols · Japanese Signage Buttons rare

A red square containing the katakana for ここ (koko), meaning “here.” It comes from Unicode's original 2010 emoji set, unified from Japanese mobile carrier pictograms used on maps and directional signage. English speakers who don't read Japanese rarely type it for its literal meaning, but it occasionally shows up as a stylized “you are here” marker on maps, itineraries, or location-tagged posts, especially in Japan-travel content.

Best used when referencing an actual Japanese map, sign, or itinerary rather than as a generic “I'm here” marker, since most English readers won't recognize it otherwise.

🈁 you can find me at gate 12 📋 Twitter/X post sharing an airport location
Meet up 🈁 at 3pm by the torii gate 📋 Group chat coordinating a meetup during a Japan trip
Fun fact: 🈁 literally means “here” in Japanese 📋 Discord chat explaining obscure emoji meanings

It originates from Japan's carrier-specific emoji sets (docomo, au, SoftBank) that Unicode merged into a single standard in 2010, long before Western platforms adopted emoji broadly.

Combos with 🈁

🈁📍
current location / you are here
Captioning a map screenshot or location pin
🈁🗾
here, in Japan
Travel post pinpointing a spot within a Japan itinerary
🈁🏯
here at this landmark
Tagging a temple, castle, or tourist site in a travel caption

Culture

The character is squared katakana for ここ (koko), literally “here” — not a kanji, unlike most of its sibling button emoji, which enclose a single kanji character.

It belongs to a family of red/orange Japanese signage emoji unified into Unicode from Japanese phone carriers' pictogram sets in 2010, well before most international users had any practical use for them.

Apple, Google, and Samsung all render it as a plain red square with white katakana, so unlike many emoji it looks nearly identical across platforms, with no cartoon redesign to diverge.

Gen_X: Gen X users are generally unfamiliar with it and are unlikely to encounter or use it outside of an emoji-picker search.
Gen_Z: Gen Z mostly discovers this emoji through “weird emoji meanings” TikToks rather than ever typing it themselves.
Boomers: Boomers almost never use it, and most wouldn't recognize it as an emoji with meaning rather than a random symbol.
Millennials: Millennials who traveled to Japan may recognize it from station signage but rarely use it in everyday texting.

History

2010

Unicode 6.0 unifies the incompatible docomo, au, and SoftBank carrier pictogram sets into the original global emoji block, encoding this squared katakana button in the process.

Google and Apple engineers pushed to standardize Japan's three carrier emoji sets so text messages would render consistently across networks and, eventually, other countries.

2011

iOS 5 opens the full Unicode emoji keyboard to all users worldwide for the first time, rather than restricting it to Japanese carrier accounts as earlier iOS versions had.

Apple's decision in October 2011 to unlock the previously Japan-exclusive emoji keyboard exposed English-speaking users to obscure symbols like 🈁 for the first time.