Lion vs Tiger

Lion and Tiger tattoos are easy to confuse, so here is what each one actually signifies. The lion carries one of the deepest iconographic inheritances in world tattoo history. The tiger (Japanese tora, 虎) is the canonical counterpart to the dragon in East Asian cosmology. The table sets their documented meanings side by side, each cell drawn from the sourced Tattoo History Atlas meanings archive.

When to choose which

Choose Lion when that reading is what you mean: A lion tattoo most commonly means courage, royalty, strength, paternal protection, and sovereign authority, but the specific reading depends entirely on the tradition the design descends from. The Mesopotamian and Egyptian lion (the Ishtar Gate procession of c. 575 BCE Babylon; the Sekhmet cult at Karnak; the Assyrian palace reliefs of Ashurbanipal c. 645 BCE) reads as royal hunting prowess and divine martial force. The Greco-Roman lion (the Nemean Lion strangled by Heracles in the first labor; the venatio beast-hunts of the imperial arenas) reads as conquered chaos. The Christian Lion of Judah (Genesis 49:9; Revelation 5:5; Saint Mark's winged lion in Venice) reads as Christ enthroned. The Ethiopian Lion of Judah and the Rastafarian Selassie register read as Black sovereignty and religious lineage. The Three Lions of England (Plantagenet arms c. 1198) read as heraldic royalty. The Chinese shíshī and Japanese irezumi shishi read as guardian threshold-protection. Choose Tiger when this is closer: A tiger tattoo most commonly reads as strength, courage, protective power, and martial authority, but the specific reading shifts with the tradition the design descends from. In Chinese cosmological iconography the White Tiger of the West (Bái Hǔ) is one of the Four Symbols paired with the Azure Dragon. In Japanese irezumi the tora functions as a wind deity, a protector, and a traditional antidote to poison; the classical convention is that the tiger and dragon balance each other in opposition and are rarely combined in a single composition. In Hindu iconography Goddess Durga rides a tiger. In Korean tradition the tiger is a sacred guardian and the national animal. In Siberian Indigenous shamanism the Amur tiger is a sacred figure. The American Japanese-influenced and contemporary realism tiger registers are open commercial designs descending from the documented Sailor Jerry to Horihide to Don Ed Hardy transmission.

Read each in full

• Lion: the full meaning guide
• Tiger: the full meaning guide

Common questions