The koto is a traditional Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese stringed

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

 musical instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

, similar to the Chinese guzheng

Guzheng

The guzheng or "gu zheng", also called zheng is a Chinese plucked zither. It has 18-23 or more strings and movable bridges....

, the Mongolian yatga

Yatga

The yatga is a traditional Mongolian plucked zither, related to the Chinese guzheng.Yatga may vary widely in size, tuning, and number of bridges and strings; The body is a long wooden box, one end of which is angled downward. The performer plucks the strings with the fingernails of the right...

, the Korean gayageum

Gayageum

The gayageum or kayagum is a traditional Korean zither-like string instrument, with 12 strings, although more recently variants have been constructed with 21 or other numbers of strings. It is probably the best known traditional Korean musical instrument...

and the Vietnamese đàn tranh. The koto is the national instrument of Japan. Koto are about 180 centimetres (70.9 in) length, and made from kiri wood (Paulownia tomentosa

Paulownia tomentosa

Paulownia tomentosa is a deciduous tree in the genus Paulownia, native to central and western China, but invasive in the US...

). They have 13 strings that are strung over 13 movable bridges

Bridge (instrument)

A bridge is a device for supporting the strings on a stringed instrument and transmitting the vibration of those strings to some other structural component of the instrument in order to transfer the sound to the surrounding air.- Explanation :...

 along the width of the instrument. Players can adjust the string pitches by moving these bridges before playing, and use three finger picks (on thumb, index finger, and middle finger) to pluck the strings.
The character for koto is 箏, although 琴 is often used, but 琴 usually refers to another instrument, the kin

Guqin

The guqin is the modern name for a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family...

.