Tachibana clan (橘氏, Tachibana-uji, Tachibana-shi) was one of the four most powerful kuge (court nobility) families in Japan's Nara and early Heian periods—the other three were the Minamoto, the Fujiwara, and the Taira.

[1] Members of the Tachibana family often held high court posts within the Daijō-kan (Ministry of State), most frequently Sadaijin (Minister of the Left).

Though serving in high government posts outside the capital, they were thus denied the degree of power and influence within the court at Kyoto (Heian-kyō) which they once enjoyed.

Over the course of the Heian period, they engaged in countless struggles with the Fujiwara family for domination of court politics, and thus essentially for control of the nation; on a number of occasions this developed into outright violent conflict.

Though the rebellion was ultimately suppressed, the Tachibana family was scattered in the process, and lost much of its power.