Abbreviated and contracted words are a common feature in the Japanese language. Long words are often contracted into shorter forms, which then become the predominant forms. For example, the University of Tokyo, … Wikipedia
🌐
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Japanese_abbreviated_and_contracted_words
Japanese abbreviated and contracted words - Wikipedia
January 30, 2026 - Abbreviated and contracted words are a common feature in the Japanese language. Long words are often contracted into shorter forms, which then become the predominant forms. For example, the University of Tokyo, in Japanese Tōkyō Daigaku (東京大学) becomes Tōdai (東大), and "remote ...
🌐
Busuu
busuu.com › en › japanese › abbreviations
A Guide to Japanese Abbreviation and Acronyms - Busuu
These are called gairaigo (外来語), which means ‘loan word’ or ‘borrowed word’ in Japanese. English is the origin of most modern gairaigo. Loan words are generally written in katakana and pronounced with Japanese syllables. First we will look at some simple loan words. You may notice that they are already abbreviated.
🌐
Laendercode.net
laendercode.net › home › all countries in the world › j
Japan country code according to ISO standard, Abbreviation / Code
The two-letter country abbreviation for Japan is JP, the three-letter code is JPN. Country-specific domains ending with .jp, e.g.
🌐
Quora
quora.com › How-do-you-find-the-abbreviation-of-Japan
How to find the abbreviation of Japan - Quora
I don’t really understand your question, but let me know if you could explain what you need. The two-letter code (and domain name) is JP and three-letter code is JPN. On a layman level, Wikipedia probably lists this in the page about Japan.
🌐
All Acronyms
allacronyms.com › japanese › abbreviated
Japanese Abbreviation: Short Forms Guide
May 3, 2023 - Explore 12 popular abbreviations for "Japanese". These are the most popular short forms used across Language Codes, Technology, and everyday contexts.
Find elsewhere
🌐
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › ISO_3166-2:JP
ISO 3166-2:JP - Wikipedia
February 19, 2026 - Each code consists of two parts, separated by a hyphen. The first part is JP, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of Japan. The second part is two digits (01–47), which is the Japanese Industrial Standard JIS X 0401 code of the prefecture.
🌐
Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com › item
Why "ja." for Japanese when the ISO country code is JP? | Hacker News
January 12, 2013 - Well, never mind anyway, because it's google.co.jp, but google.com.sg. IT people really are annoying! ;-)
🌐
Abbreviation Finder
abbreviationfinder.org › japan-abbreviations
Japan Abbreviations | Abbreviation Finder
Language: Japanese · Area: 377,973 km2 · Population: 126,317,011 · Currency: Yen (¥) (JPY) Time zone: UTC+9 · Calling code: 81 · ISO 2-Letter Abbreviation: JP · UN 3-Letter Abbreviation: JPN · Internet TLD: .jp · State Government Website: http://japan.kantei.go.jp ·
🌐
All Acronyms
allacronyms.com › japan › abbreviated
Japan Abbreviation: Short Forms Guide
November 24, 2024 - Explore popular shortcuts to use Japan abbreviation and the short forms with our easy guide. Review the list of 9 top ways to abbreviate Japan. Updated in 2024 to ensure the latest compliance and practices
🌐
Preply
preply.com › preply language learning hub › learn japanese online › japanese vocabulary › japanese abbreviations: 50 everyday shortcuts to sound natural
Japanese abbreviations – 50 essential terms for everyday talk
November 12, 2025 - Japanese abbreviations reflect the mixed writing system of the language, combining kanji for meaning-heavy concepts with kana for grammatical elements or foreign sounds. This mixing creates efficient, readable abbreviations that maintain clarity while saving space. Japan uses jp for internet domains and jpn for international sports competitions, while ja represents the Japanese language code.
🌐
ISO
iso.org › obp › ui
JP - Japan
You have to enable javascript in your browser to use an application built with Vaadin
🌐
FLIP Japan Guide
flipjapanguide.com › flip japan guide › japanese culture & language › learning japanese › japanese abbreviations: 40 must-know shortcuts for easy communication
Japanese Abbreviations: 40 Must-Know Shortcuts For Easy Communication
July 12, 2024 - Konbini, コンビニ (Convenience store, コンビニエンスストア) Two of the most famous convenience stores in Japan are Family Mart and Seven-Eleven, which are also commonly abbreviated in Japanese, as we’ll cover next.
🌐
Abbreviations.com
abbreviations.com › abbreviation › Japanese
What is the abbreviation for Japanese?
Looking for the abbreviation of Japanese? Find out what is the most common shorthand of Japanese on Abbreviations.com! The Web's largest and most authoritative acronyms and abbreviations resource.
Top answer
1 of 1
14

ES, DE, EN are all ISO codes -- "ISO" as in "International Standards Organization" (technically, it's the "International Organization for Standardization"). These codes are used worldwide, particularly in programming and other technical contexts. In localization engineering, I've dealt with these codes for years. There's no particular value in developing a competing standard—the point of a standard is that, well, it's the standard.

That said, Japanese already has a convention for abbreviating country names in text -- usually the first kanji of the country's full name.

  • 英【えい】 for the UK / English, from 英【い】吉【ぎ】利【り】[ ]{す} (Igirisu, probably from Portuguese Inglês, with the spelling from Chinese)
  • 露【ろ】 for Russia / Russian, from 露【ろ】西【し】亜【あ】 (Roshia, from Russian Росси́я (Rossíja), with the spelling probably partly from Chinese)
  • 仏【ふ】 for France / French, from 仏【ふ】蘭【らん】西【す】 (Furansu, ultimately from French France, spelling derivation unknown)
  • [独]{ど or どく} for Germany / German, from 独【ど】逸【いつ】 (Doitsu, from Dutch Duits //dœy̯ts//)
  • 中【ちゅう】 for China / Chinese, from 中国【ちゅうごく】 (Chūgoku, from Chinese 中國)
  • 日【にち】 for Japan / Japanese, from 日【に】本【ほん】 (Nihon)

And so on and so forth. Pretty much every country that has a kanji-based name can be abbreviated in this way. However, there are exceptions, so be sure to look things up:

  • 蘭 for the Netherlands / Dutch, from 阿【お】​蘭【らん】​陀【だ】 (Oranda, from Portuguese Holanda with a silent "H", meaning "Holland" -- which historically was the leading province of the Dutch Republic and roughly corresponds to the provinces North Holland and South Holland, two of the twelve provinces that make up the present country of the Netherlands)

Update

As pointed out by Earthliŋ in the comments, sometimes Japan and Japanese are referred to by the abbreviation 和. This stretches back over a thousand years to the initial textual references to any country referred to as "Japan", when Chinese-language sources describe the country of "Wa" or 倭 (wa, literally "dwarf" in Chinese). See the 和 entry at Wiktionary for more detail. (Full disclosure: I edited that entry.)

One example of modern usage of this 和 to mean "Japanese" is this German-Japanese dictionary over on Amazon, using 独和【どくわ】 to refer to "German" and "Japanese". It's also the component used in the term 和文【わぶん】 "Japanese text", in contrast to 漢文【かんぶん】 or "Chinese text". Or in 和語【わご】 "Japanese language" in contrast to 漢語【かんご】 or "Chinese language".

Meanwhile, there is also a dictionary from the early 1600s that has been very important in discovering how Japanese sounds have changed over the centuries, called the 日葡辞書【にっぽじしょ】, using 日 to refer to "Japanese" instead.

So I think both 和 and 日 would work as one-character abbreviations for "Japanese". My subjective sense is that the two might be used in different contexts, but I do not understand the difference well enough to explain it here.


Please comment if the above does not address your question.

🌐
GaijinPot
blog.gaijinpot.com › decoding-japanese-slang-unveiling-online-abbreviations
Decoding Japanese Net-Speak: Unveiling Online Abbreviations - GaijinPot
June 22, 2023 - On the other hand, GGR is short for ググレ (gugure), which is taken from the Japanese verb guguru (to Google something) with the -れ (re) ending, which is added as an order or command. As if ordering someone to do something wasn’t enough, with most message boards being the toxic places they are, another anglicized abbreviation, KS, is frequently attached to make GGRKS.
🌐
Abbreviation Finder
abbreviationfinder.org › blog › three-letter-country-code-for-japan
Three-Letter Country Code for Japan – Abbreviation Finder Blog
The letter J in the abbreviation ... roots, cultural richness, and resilience that define Japan’s national identity. Japan’s name in Japanese is Nihon (日本) ......
🌐
ACL Anthology
aclanthology.org › W09-2909.pdf pdf
Abbreviation Generation for Japanese Multi-Word ...
Proceedings of the 2009 Workshop on Multiword Expressions, ACL-IJCNLP 2009, pages 63–70, · Suntec, Singapore, 6 August 2009. c⃝2009 ACL and AFNLP