Futon

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title: "Futon" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["beds", "couches", "japanese-home", "folk-art", "mattresses", "portable-furniture"] description: "Traditional Japanese bedding" topic_path: "geography/japan" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futon" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Traditional Japanese bedding ::

::callout[type=note] the Japanese mattress ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Futons_in_a_Ryokan_-_2.jpg" caption="kakebuton}}s. The top two futons in each stack are covered in white fitted sheets, matching the pillowslips."] ::

A futon is a traditional Japanese style of bedding.

A complete futon set consists of a mattress and a duvet. Both elements of a futon bedding set are pliable enough to be folded and stored away in a large closet during the day. This allows a room to serve as a bedroom at night, but serve other purposes during the day.

Traditionally, futons are used on tatami, a type of mat used as a flooring material. It also provides a softer base than wooden or stone floors. Futons must be aired regularly to prevent mold from developing, and to keep the futon free of mites. Throughout Japan, futons can commonly be seen hanging over balconies, airing in the sun. Futon dryers may be used by those unable to hang out their futon.

History and materials

Before recycled cotton cloth was widely available in Japan, commoners used ja, stitched crinkled paper stuffed with fibers from beaten dry straw, cattails, or silk waste, on ja straw floor mats. Later, futons were made with patchwork recycled cotton, quilted together and filled with bast fiber. Later they were filled with cotton. Wool and synthetics are now also used.

ja (よぎ, literally "nightclothes") are kimono-shaped bedclothes. They were used in the 1800s and early 1900s. Rectangular jas are now widely used. jas vary in materials; some are warmer than others. Those with traditional cotton filling feel heavier than those with feather or synthetic fillings.

Traditional ja (まくら) are generally firmer than western pillows. They may be filled with beans, buckwheat chaff, bran, or, modernly, plastic beads, all of which mold to the head. Historically, some women used wooden headrests to protect their hairstyles.

File:Sleeping two, Kasuga Gongen Genki (1309).jpg|Sleeping on tatami, with no futon, and clothes used as coverings. Early 14th century File:Child's Sleeping Mat (boro Shikimono), late 19th century (CH 1108827543).jpg|Child's ja, late 1800s. ja (patchwork) held together with over-all quilting stitching; see ja. 白綸子地牡丹縞模様夜着-Kimono-shaped Comforter (Yogi) with Peonies and Stripes MET DP317744.jpg|A warm winter ja, front 白綸子地牡丹縞模様夜着-Kimono-shaped Comforter (Yogi) with Peonies and Stripes MET DP317746.jpg|Back. Early 20th century. THE FAMILY IN BED. (1910) - illustration - page 137.png|Typical Tokyo family sleeping arrangements of 1910

Dimensions

Futons are traditionally laid on tatami rush mats, which are resilient and can absorb and re-release up to half a liter of moisture each. Tatamis measure 1 by 0.5 ken, just under 1 by 2 meters, the same size as a Western twin bed. A traditional ja is also about the size of a Western twin bed. , double-bed-sized jas were available, but they can be a bit heavy and awkward to stow.

The ja is usually 2-3 in thick, and rarely as much as 6 in thick; they need to dry well, or they will become heavy and mouldy. A ja is thus about as thick as a Western mattress topper. If more thickness is needed, jas are layered.

jas may be wider than jas, and they vary in thickness. Depending on the weather, they may be layered with a warm , or replaced with a lighter .

The traditional ja is usually smaller than a western pillow.

File:布団干し_(528985156).jpg|Futons hung out to air on a balcony File:Futons ranges.jpg|Futons stored in an ja, in a tatami-floored ja (traditional Japanese room) File:Tatami sectional view.jpg|Cross-section of a tatami mat with a hidden extruded-polystyrene core and layers of the traditional ja (common rush) top and bottom File:Japanese_Pipe_Pillow.jpg|Pillow filled with tiny sections of plastic tubing

Western-style futons

Image:Futon-america.jpg|Western-style futon, folded into a sofa on a sofabed-futon frame File:A futon shop in Strasbourg, France.jpg|A shop in France selling westernized futons with frames |border=no|align=right}}

In the mid-1970s, futons became fashionable in North America. The construction method was similar to that of contemporary Japanese futons: cotton batting, covered in cotton ticking and held in place with hand-sewn tufting (through-thickness stitches). This was also the structure that had been used in the United States' 1940-1941 Cotton Mattress Program, designed to use excess cotton production by subsidizing materials for people to make their own cotton mattresses.

However, Western-style futons, which typically resemble low, wooden sofa beds, differ considerably from their Japanese counterparts. They often have the dimensions of standard western mattresses, and are too thick to fold double and stow easily in a cupboard. They are often set up and stored on a slatted frame, which avoids having to move them to air regularly, especially in the dry indoor air of a centrally-heated house (most Japanese homes were not traditionally centrally-heated).

Futon-like traditional European beds

Traditional European beds resembled Japanese-style futon sets, with thin tick mattresses. These were only sometimes set on a bedframe. The term "bed" did not originally include the bedframe, but only the bedding, the same components included in a Japanese futon set.

It was also traditional to air these beds, and duvets are still aired in the window in Europe. In English-speaking cultures, however, airing bedding outdoors came to be seen as a foreign practice, with 19th-century housekeeping manuals giving methods of airing beds inside, and disparaging airing them in the window as "German-style".

File:Mattress topper atop a boxspring mattress.webp|A mattress topper (white) on a boxspring mattress (grey). Mattress toppers are generally structurally similar to futons, are often made of similar materials, and (in the case of twin-bed toppers) have similar dimensions. Note the tufting. File:Wikimania 2014 - Victoria and Albert Museum - The Great Bed of Ware221398.jpg|Museum samples demonstrating a 1590s bed: the bedcords, bedmat, three tick mattresses in dun and striped ticking, and the bedlinen. File:Edmund Dulac - Princess and pea.jpg|The fairytale "The Princess and the Pea" exaggerates the traditional European layering of thin mattresses. File:Medical Department - Sanitary Service - Sanitation - Beds airing, Camp Funston, Kansas - NARA - 45499067 (cropped to image).jpg|"Beds airing, Camp Funston, Kansas", in 1917 or 1918 File:Dubrovnik, varios 23.jpg|Airing a feather duvet in Dubrovnik, 2010

References

References

1. Evans, Toshie M.. (1997). "A dictionary of Japanese loanwords". Greenwood Press.
2. (2013). "Sleep around the world : anthropological perspectives". Palgrave Macmillan.
3. Otowa, Rebecca. (2010). "At home in Japan : a foreign woman's journey of discovery". Tuttle Pub.
4. (2004-01-01). "Boro no Bi : Beauty in Humility—Repaired Cotton Rags of Old Japan". Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings.
5. [[:File:THE FAMILY IN BED. (1910) - illustration - page 137.png]]
6. (23 July 2016). "Traditional Japanese Houses".
7. See [[Tatami#Size]] for details
8. (17 April 2009). "The Pros and Cons of the Japanese Futon – Asian Lifestyle Design".
9. (12 November 2023). "Shikibutons Explained: Health Benefits, How to Choose, and Everything You Need to Know".
10. (9 January 2021). "Mattress Topper Types - Materials, Thickness, Density".
11. (29 November 2019). "FAQs – Futons From Japan".
12. "Futons- Overview and Brief History of styles".
13. (2014). ""In No Way a Relief Set Up": The County Cotton Mattress Program in Kansas, 1940–1941".
14. (28 December 1940). "Make a Mattress With Free Cotton". Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections.
15. (2002). "Encyclopedia of modern everyday inventions". Greenwood Press.
16. (27 September 1984). "FUTON MATTRESSES: WHAT AND WHERE". The New York Times.
17. See [[Airing (air circulation)]]
18. Nute, Kevin. (2004). "Place, time, and being in Japanese architecture". Routledge.
19. Dictionnaire de l'ameublement et de la décoration depuis le XIIIe siècle jusqu'à nos jours, Havard, Henry, 1838-1921
20. (2006). "Featherbeds, duvets, eiderdowns, feather ticks - history".
21. (1910). "Home Life in Tokyo".

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