A cherry blossom is the name for the flower of cherry trees known as Sakura (Japanese kanji : or ; hiragana: ) in Japanese. In English, the word "sakura" is equivalent to the Japanese flowering cherry. Cherry fruit (known in Japanese as sakuranbo) comes from another species of tree.

Cherry Blossoms are indigenous to many Asian states including Japan, Korea, China, and India. Japan has a wide variety of cherry blossoms (sakura); well over 200 cultivars can be found there. During the Heian Period (794?1191), Japanese sought to emulate many practices from China, including the social phenomenon of flower viewing (hanami: ), where the imperial households, poets, singers and other aristocrats would gather and celebrate under the blossoms.

In Japan, cherry trees were planted and cultivated for their beauty, for the adornment of the grounds of the nobility of Kyoto, at least as early as 794. In China, the ume "plum" tree (actually a species of apricot) was held in highest regard, but by the middle of the ninth century, the cherry blossom had replaced the plum as the favored species in Japan.

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