Major honours
The Nippon Badminton Association was founded in 1946, and the national team uses the Ajinomoto National Training Center in Tokyo's Kita ward. Japan's strength has long been in the women's game. It has won the Uber Cup six times, second only to China, first in 1966 and again in Bangkok in 2018, beating Thailand 3-0 to end a 37-year gap since 1981. The men's breakthrough began when Korea's Park Joo-bong took over as national coach for a 20-year tenure starting in 2004, leading to Japan's first-ever Thomas Cup title in New Delhi in 2014 and an Olympic gold in women's doubles from Ayaka Takahashi and Misaki Matsutomo at Rio 2016. World Championship golds reached 10 when Akane Yamaguchi took a third women's singles title in Paris in 2025. A domestic corporate league backed by companies such as NTT East, Unisys and Sysmex underpins this success.
Record comparison
Bars are scaled to the strongest team in this list.
Club legends
Rivalry
The women's Uber Cup battle with China is the oldest axis, and Japan's rapid rise under coach Park Joo-bong gave the relationship with Korea an unusual mentor-and-rival character. Repeated finals between Nozomi Okuhara and P.V. Sindhu opened a new axis between Japan and India.