Badminton Emoji

A badminton racquet and shuttlecock. This emoji represents one of the world's most misunderstood sports — a game that 220 million people play across the globe, where shuttlecocks travel faster than F1 cars (565 km/h record smash), and where players in Indonesia and China are treated like football stars are in Europe.

The perception gap is the story. In the West, badminton = backyard BBQ game with plastic birdies. In Asia, it's a fiercely competitive sport with professional leagues, packed stadiums, and national heroes. Indonesia considers badminton its national sport. China has 80 million registered players. The shuttlecock speed record (565 km/h, set by India's Satwiksairaj Rankireddy in 2023) is faster than any F1 car has ever traveled.

The emoji itself is straightforward — used for the sport, for casual play, and occasionally as a general "racket sports" stand-in. But behind its simple design sits one of the largest participation sports on Earth and one of the most dramatic cultural divides in how any sport is perceived.

🏸 usage splits sharply along geographic lines. In Southeast Asia, China, and India, it appears in competitive match discussions, player fan accounts, and tournament updates — similar to how ⚽ functions in Europe. In Western countries, it's more casual: backyard game invites, PE class mentions, and "let's play something" messages.

On social media, badminton content thrives on Asian platforms and communities. Indonesian badminton fans are famously passionate — entire stadiums react vocally to every rally. Chinese badminton TikTok and Douyin content draws millions of views. The sport's social media presence is massive but concentrated geographically.

The emoji also appears in sport-general contexts: fitness posts, weekend activity planning, and "what sport should we play?" group chats. It's safe, unambiguous, and carries no hidden meanings.

Badminton's roots stretch back over 2,000 years to battledore and shuttlecock — a simple game of hitting a feathered object back and forth, played in ancient Greece, China, and India. The modern sport emerged in the 1860s when British army officers stationed in Pune (then Poona), India, encountered a local racquet game and formalized it.

The sport gets its name from Badminton House, the country estate of the Duke of Beaufort in Gloucestershire, England, where it was first played around 1873. The first rules were drawn up in Pune that same year. The Badminton Association of England was formed in 1893, and the All England Open — the world's oldest and most prestigious badminton tournament — began in 1899.

Badminton was introduced to the Olympics at Barcelona 1992. Since then, Asian nations have dominated: Indonesia, China, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia have won the vast majority of medals. Only one European player has ever won Olympic singles gold: Denmark's Viktor Axelsen (Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024).

The emoji was approved in Unicode 8.0 (2015) as U+1F3F8 BADMINTON RACQUET AND SHUTTLECOCKU+1F3F8 BADMINTON RACQUET AND SHUTTLECOCK — one of the longest official emoji names in Unicode.

Approved in Unicode 8.0 (2015) as U+1F3F8 BADMINTON RACQUET AND SHUTTLECOCKU+1F3F8 BADMINTON RACQUET AND SHUTTLECOCK. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. The five-word Unicode name is one of the longest in the emoji standard.

1. 2015Approved in Unicode 8.0 as U+1F3F8 BADMINTON RACQUET AND SHUTTLECOCK↗
2. 2015Added to Emoji 1.0, available on all major platforms

No sport emoji carries a bigger perception gap between cultures than 🏸.

Indonesia: Badminton is the official national sport. Players like Taufik Hidayat, Susi Susanti, and the Minions (Marcus Gideon / Kevin Sanjaya) are household names. Indonesia has won Olympic badminton gold in every Games since 1992 except 2012 and 2024. The fan culture is intense — stadiums are full, crowds react to every point, and losses trigger national soul-searching.

China: With 80 million registered players, China is the world's largest badminton nation. Lin Dan and Zhang Ning are legends. Badminton is a staple of public parks and recreation centers, played by everyone from schoolchildren to retirees. China has won 47 Olympic badminton medals — more than any other country.

India: The fastest-growing badminton market. PV Sindhu (Olympic silver 2016, bronze 2020), Saina Nehwal, and Lakshya Sen have made badminton a major sport. The Premier Badminton League draws serious investment.

Western countries: Badminton is perceived as a casual backyard game. Most people's only experience is with plastic shuttlecocks and aluminum racquets on a lawn. The athletic reality of competitive badminton — shuttlecocks at 565 km/h, matches requiring marathon-level endurance — is virtually unknown.

Denmark: The lone Western badminton powerhouse. Viktor Axelsen's back-to-back Olympic golds (2020, 2024) have made him a national hero. Denmark is the only non-Asian country to have won the Thomas Cup (2016).

• •Badminton is the second most popular participation sport in the world with 220 million players — behind only soccer.
• •The shuttlecock speed record (565 km/h) is faster than any F1 car has ever traveled (372.6 km/h).
• •Each competitive shuttlecock requires 16 goose feathers from the same wing. Feather prices have doubled since 2022.
• •China has 80 million registered badminton players — more than the entire population of most countries.
• •Indonesia has won 14 Thomas Cups but missed Olympic gold in only 2 of 9 Games since badminton was introduced in 1992.
• •Denmark's Viktor Axelsen is the only active player with back-to-back Olympic singles golds (2020, 2024) — and only the second ever after China's Lin Dan.
• •The official Unicode name BADMINTON RACQUET AND SHUTTLECOCK is one of the longest emoji names in the standard.

• •Westerners often see 🏸 as a casual backyard game emoji, not realizing it represents one of the most physically demanding competitive sports in the world.
• •Sometimes confused with 🏓 (table tennis) because both are popular in Asia — but they're completely different sports with different equipment and gameplay.
• •Some users use 🏸 as a generic "racket sport" emoji when they can't find one for squash or racquetball (neither has a dedicated emoji).

• •"Badminton: The Indonesian Obsession" — the sport is described by the New York Times as "part of the national identity" in Indonesia, where players are treated like football stars.
• •Lin Dan — China's "Super Dan" is widely considered the greatest badminton player of all time. His rivalry with Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei produced some of the most-watched badminton matches in history.
• •All England Open (since 1899) — the world's oldest and most prestigious badminton tournament, considered badminton's equivalent of Wimbledon.
• •Thomas Cup and Uber Cup — the men's and women's team championships, inspired by tennis's Davis Cup. Indonesia (14 titles) and China (11) dominate the Thomas Cup.

• •Codepoint: U+1F3F8. No variation selector needed.
• •Full Unicode name: BADMINTON RACQUET AND SHUTTLECOCK (5 words — unusually long).
• •Shortcodes: :badminton: (GitHub, Slack, Discord).
• •Consider mapping to: badminton, shuttlecock, birdie, racquet sport in search features.

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.