A Japanese short-necked fretted lute which is believed to have arrived from China (and possibly originally from Persia) around the 16th century.

There are more than 7 types of biwa, characterised by number of strings, sounds it could produce, type of plectrum, and their use. As the biwa does not play in tempered tuning, pitches are approximated to the nearest note. Most have 4 strings, although one type of modern biwa has 5 (as shown).