The inaugural Symposium on Turbulent Shear Flows was held at The Pennsylvania State University in 1977. Thereafter the locations for the biennial symposium have alternated between the USA and Europe. However, the ninth Symposium on Turbu­ lent Shear Flows was awarded to Japan in recognition of the strong support researchers of the Pacific Rim countries have given previous symposia. The University of Kyoto was the host institution and the meeting was held in the Inter­ national Conference Hall. The Local Arrangements Committee did a superb job scheduling traditional Japanese dinners and arranging visits to the many cultural treasures in the Kyoto region. The meeting attracted more than 260 offers of papers. Thirty-three sessions were scheduled to accommodate the 138 papers accepted for oral presentation. In addition a poster session was scheduled on each of the three days to accommodate a total of 42 poster presentations. From the presentations at the symposium 24 have been selected for inclusion in this volume. The authors of these papers have revised them taking into consideration comments made during their oral presentation and recommendations made by the Editors. Four subject areas are identified, namely closures and fundamentals, free flows, wall flows, and combustion and recirculating flows. Eminent authorities have prepared introductory articles fot each topic to put the individual contributions in context with each other and with related research.