Flag of China
The national flag of the People's Republic of China, also known as the Five-star Red Flag, is a Chinese red field with five golden stars charged at the canton. The design features one large star, with four smaller stars in an arc set off towards the fly.
The first national flag of China, called the Yellow Dragon Flag, was adopted by the Qing dynasty in 1862, featuring the Azure Dragon on a plain yellow field with the red flaming pearl in the upper left corner. On January 10, 1912, with the Xinhai Revolution and the establishment of the Republic of China, the Five-Colored Flag was adopted as the national flag by the Beiyang government, feauturing five colored stripes representing the five major ethnic groups in China. After the successful Northern Expedition, which saw the Kuomintang overthrowing the Beiyang government, which adopted a flag consisting of a red field with a blue canton bearing a white disk surrounded by twelve triangles as China's national flag.
The Five-star Red Flag was adopted as the national flag of China since the foundation of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. The flag was designed by Zeng Liansong. The red represents the Chinese Communist Revolution. The five stars and their relationships to each other represent the unity of four social classes of Chinese people, symbolized by four smaller stars, under the Chinese Communist Party, symbolized by the large star. The flag was first hoisted by the People's Liberation Army on a pole overlooking Beijing's Tiananmen Square on 1 October 1949, at a ceremony proclaiming the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
Current design
Symbolism
According to the official government interpretation of the flag, the red background symbolizes the Chinese Communist Revolution. The five stars and their relationship represents the unity of Chinese people under the leadership of the CCP. The orientation of the stars shows that the unity should revolve around a center. The larger star symbolizes the CCP, and the four smaller stars symbolize the four social classes of China's New Democracy mentioned in Mao Zedong's "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship": the working class, the peasantry, the urban petite bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie. It is sometimes incorrectly stated that the five stars of the flag represent the five largest ethnic groups: Han Chinese, Zhuangs, Hui people, Manchus and Uyghurs. This is generally regarded as an erroneous conflation with the "Five Races Under One Union" flag, used by the Beiyang government of Republic of China, whose different-colored stripes represented the Han Chinese, Hui people, Manchus, Mongols and Tibetans.Construction
The construction sheet for the national flag was published on 28 September 1949 by an order from the Presidium of the First Plenary Session of the CPPCC. The information can also be found in the document "GB 12982-2004: National flag" that was released by the Standardization Administration of China.| Construction sheet | Standard |
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Size specifications
The Law on the National Flag notes five possible sizes that could be made for the national flag. According to Article 4 of the National Flag Law, people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government are directed to authorize companies to make any copy of the national flag. Besides five official sizes for flying on flagpoles, there are another four smaller sizes for other purposes, such as decoration on cars or display in meeting rooms.| Size | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| Length × width | 288 × 192 | 240 × 160 | 192 × 128 | 144 × 96 | 96 × 64 | 66 × 44 | 45 × 30 | 30 × 20 | 21 × 14 |
Color specifications
The colors of the national flag are stipulated in the document "GB 12983-2004: Standard Color Sample of the National Flag", and promulgated by the Standardization Administration of China. The colors are in specified in CIE 1964 xyY10 color space under standard illuminant D65.For computer display, the National Flag Law defers to "standard" PNG images posted on the National People's Congress website. The specific colors used, in the sRGB space of the PNG file, are:
| Red | Yellow | |
| RGB | 238/28/37 | 255/255/0 |
| Hexadecimal | #EE1C25 | #FFFF00 |
| CMYK | 0/88/84/7 | 0/0/100/0 |
Unicode
The Flag of China is represented as the Unicode emoji sequence and.Protocol
The Law of the People's Republic of China on the National Flag was passed by 14th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 7th National People's Congress on 28 June 1990 and was enforced starting 1 October 1990. The law set regulations on how to make the Chinese flag, what it looks like, where it can be flown and how it can be flown. The law also stresses that the national flag is "the symbol and hallmark of the People's Republic of China" and that everyone "shall respect and care for the National Flag".Display
The National Flag Law has made detailed regulations on places or institutions for raising the national flag. Specifically, it stipulates the flag must be hung daily at the Tiananmen Square and Xinhuamen, the locations of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the State Council, the Central Military Commission, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the National Supervisory Commission and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, airports, ports, railway stations and other ports of entry and border or coastal defense posts.The flag should be hung at all departments under the Party Central Committee and all local Party committees, all departments of the State Council, the standing committees of local people's congresses, local people's governments, local and special people's courts, local disciplinary inspection committees and local supervisory commissions, local and special people's procuratorates, local committees of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and all democratic parties and people's organizations, or property belonging to said places or institutions on working days. National flags should be raised in full-time schools except during vacations and Sundays. Schools are required to display the national flag every day except during winter and summer vacations and rest days, while public cultural and sports facilities such as libraries, museums, cultural centers, art galleries, museums of science and technology, memorial halls, exhibition halls, gymnasiums, and youth palaces are mandated to display the flag on the days they are open. In addition, the flag is displayed in public squares, parks and other public venues, as well as by residential buildings during important national holidays.
The flag displayed in the aforementioned conditions are raised morning and lowered in the evening. A Flag Raising Ceremony may be held during displays of the national flag, where the March of the Volunteers, the national anthem, shall be played or sung. Participants should stand at attention facing the national flag and salute. The ceremony is to be held daily at the Tiananmen Square, while schools hold the ceremony once a week except during holidays. When raising or lowering on an upright flagpole, the flag should rise and fall slowly. When raised, the flag must be raised to the top of the pole. When lowered, the national flag must not be allowed to touch the ground. When flown at half-mast, the national flag should first be raised to the top of the pole, and then lowered into a position where the distance between the top of the flag and the top of the pole is one-third of the total length of the flagpole; and when it is lowered, the national flag should first be raised to the top of the pole before lowering. The flag may be not raised in severe weather conditions. Damaged, faded or substandard flags must not be used, and the flag must not be displayed upside down or hung upside down.
The national flag of China takes precedent over other flags of the state. The national flag, when raised or carried in a procession with another flag or flags, is to be in front of the other flag or flags. Additionally, when the national flag and other flags are displayed at the same time, the national flag is to be placed in a central, higher, or prominent position. However, incidents violating the aforementioned provisions, such as the CCP flag leading the national flag, have occurred. When the national flags of two or more countries are displayed, protocol is regulated by the regulations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Central Military Commission is authorized to provide methods for the display and use of the national flag by the People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police.