A cooling fan is provided that does not place limitations on the installation conditions for the fan, is capable of cooling a backlight unit of a display panel with high efficiency, and produces less noise during operation. Also provided is an image display apparatus equipped with the cooling fan. The cooling fan includes a fan rotator composed of a rotational shaft that is rotationally driven by a driving motor and two vanes that have parallel revolution shafts that rotate together with the rotational shaft, are freely rotatable on the shafts, face one another, and revolve around the rotational shafts and a vane angle control unit that implements control so that each vane has a maximum rotation angle when a revolution angle of the vanes is in a vicinity of a first revolution angle and each vane has a rotation angle of 0.degree. when a revolution angle of the vane is in a vicinity of a second revolution angle that is perpendicular to the first revolution angle. By rotating the fan rotator, a wind in a single direction perpendicular to the rotational shaft is generated to cool a back light unit of a flat panel display, for example.