Flag of Taiwan

What the flag of Taiwan looks like

The flag of Taiwan is a red rectangle with a width-to-height ratio of 2:3. In the upper left corner, the canton, is a dark blue rectangle that takes up one quarter of the flag. In the center of the canton is a white sun surrounded by twelve triangular rays, separated from the sun by a thin blue ring. The blue part is sometimes called the "blue sky" and the sun the "white sun", which gives the whole emblem its name, the Blue Sky with a White Sun.

Taiwan is governed by the Republic of China, and this flag is the official national flag of the ROC. The blue canton with the white sun is also the party emblem of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Nationalist party that long governed the ROC.

If you are comparing flags, the Taiwanese flag is different from the flag of China, which is the red flag with a large yellow star and four smaller ones. See also the Taiwan flag emoji or the download page for image files.

Taiwan flag meaning and symbolism

The three colors correspond to the Three Principles of the People of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China:

• Red represents the people's livelihood and fraternity. The red field added by Sun Yat-sen also signifies the blood of the revolutionaries who sacrificed themselves to overthrow the Qing dynasty.
• Blue represents nationalism and liberty.
• White represents democracy and equality.

The twelve rays of the sun symbolize the twelve months of the year and the twelve traditional shichen, a traditional unit of time that corresponds to two modern hours.

History of the Taiwan flag

The Blue Sky with a White Sun flag was designed by Lu Haodong, a martyr of the First Guangzhou Uprising of 1895. He presented it to represent the revolutionary army at the inauguration of the anti-Qing Revive China Society in Hong Kong on 21 February 1895. Sun Yat-sen added the red field in the winter of 1906, giving the flag its modern form. The design was later adopted as the KMT party flag and the coat of arms of the Republic of China.

When the Republic of China was established after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, a five-colored flag with horizontal bands of red, yellow, blue, white and black, standing for five major ethnic groups of China, was selected as the national flag, while the modern flag was adopted as a naval ensign. The modern flag was made official by the National Emblem and National Flag Act on 17 December 1928, after the Northern Expedition toppled the Beiyang government. It was later written into Article Six of the 1947 constitution.

After the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 on the mainland with a different flag, and the ROC government relocated to Taiwan. The ROC flag has remained in official use in the Taiwan area ever since. This is why people ask why Taiwan has China's old flag: it is the flag of the Republic of China, which was the government of China before 1949 and still exists on Taiwan.

The Taiwan flag in sports and politics

The status of Taiwan is disputed. The People's Republic of China claims the island as part of its territory, and most countries do not have formal diplomatic relations with Taipei, although only about a dozen states recognize the ROC. Because of this, the national flag is rarely seen at international events. At the Olympic Games, Taiwanese athletes compete as Chinese Taipei under a white flag with the Olympic rings and the plum blossom emblem, following an agreement reached in 1981.

In Taiwan itself, the national flag is displayed widely, especially on National Day, 10 October. Browse more at flags of Asia.