Жапон қысқы үстел – котоцу

Low, wooden table used in Japan, often with a heat source underneath

A kotatsu ([[wikt:炬燵) is a low, wooden table frame covered by a futon, or heavy blanket, upon which a table top sits. Underneath is a heat source, formerly a charcoal brazier but now electric, often built into the table itself. Kotatsu are used almost exclusively in Japan, although similar devices for the same purpose of heating are used elsewhere, e. g. the Spanish brasero or Iranian korsi.

The history of the kotatsu begins in the Muromachi period or Ashikaga shogunate during the fourteenth century. Its origins begin with the Japanese cooking hearth, known as the irori. Charcoal was the primary method of cooking and heating in the traditional Japanese household and was used to heat the irori. This early ancestor to the modern kotatsu was called a hori gotatsu. The word hori gotatsu is derived from the kanji (hori) meaning ditch, digging, (ko) meaning torch or fire, and (tatsu) meaning foot warmer. The formation of the hori gotatsu was slightly changed in the Edo period during the seventeenth century. These changes consisted of the floor around the irori being dug out into the ground in a square shape. The wooden platform was placed around this, making a hearth. Then the blanket was placed on top of the platform again, where one could sit with legs underneath to stay warm. In the middle of the twentieth century charcoal was replaced with electricity as a heating source. Instead of having the moveable earthen pot of charcoals beneath the kotatsu, it was possible to attach an electric heating fixture directly to the frame of the kotatsu. By 1997, the majority (approximately two thirds) of Japanese homes had the modern irori and 81 percent had a kotatsu, though they are warmed using electricity instead of glowing coals or charcoal. Thus, the kotatsu became completely mobile with electricity and became a common feature of Japanese homes during winter.

There are similar systems in countries around the world: economical and often sociable ways to keep warm while sitting still. In Spain and Portugal, the is a small round table with a brasero heater (i. e. a brazier) placed underneath. The Netherlands used to use a foot stove. In the First World War, British Royal Engineers built 'Japanese footwarmers' in the trenches. The 18th century traveler Lady Mary Wortley Montagu describes the similar tendour in her Turkish Embassy Letters. Tajikistan and Afghanistan have the very similar sandali, used even today in many traditional houses as a warm family eating place. Another similar item called the korsi is used likewise in Iran. In China and Korea, underfloor heating traditionally is used. The devices used in a similar fashion are, respectively, a Kang bed stove and an ondol.