Qing dynasty The first national flag of China was the "
Yellow Dragon Flag" used by the
Qing dynasty — the last
imperial dynasty in Chinese history — from 1862 until the overthrow of the monarchy during the
1911 Revolution. The flag that was adopted in 1862 was triangular, but the dynasty adopted a rectangular version of the dragon flag in 1889.
Republic of China The
canton (upper corner on the hoist side) originated from the "
Blue Sky with a White Sun flag" () designed by
Lu Haodong, a martyr of the 1911 Revolution. He presented his design to represent the revolutionary army at the inauguration of the
Revive China Society, an
anti-Qing society in
Hong Kong, on 21 February 1895. This design was later adopted as the
Kuomintang party flag and the Coat of Arms of the Republic of China. The "red Earth" portion was added by
Sun Yat-sen in the winter of 1906, bringing the flag to its modern form. According to
George Yeo, the then Foreign Minister of Singapore in 2011, in those days, the Blue Sky with a White Sun flag was sewn in the
Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall (formerly known as the "Sun Yat Sen Villa") in Singapore by Teo Eng Hock and his wife. During the
Wuchang Uprising in 1911 that heralded the Republic, the various revolutionary armies had different flags. Lu Hao-tung's "Blue Sky with a White Sun" flag was used in the provinces of
Guangdong,
Guangxi,
Yunnan, and
Guizhou. In
Wuhan, a flag with 18 yellow stars was used to represent the 18 administrative divisions at the time. In
Shanghai and northern China, a "Five-Colored Flag" () (
Five Races Under One Union flag) was used of five horizontal stripes representing the five major
nationalities of China: the
Han (red), the
Manchu (yellow), the
Mongol (blue), the
Hui (white), and the
Tibetan (black). When the government of the
Republic of China was established on 1 January 1912, the "Five-Colored Flag" was selected by the provisional Senate as the national flag. The "18-Star Flag" was adopted by the army and the modern flag was adopted as a naval ensign. Sun Yat-sen, however, did not consider the five-colored flag appropriate, reasoning that horizontal order implied a hierarchy or class like that which existed during dynastic times. After President
Yuan Shikai assumed
dictatorial powers in 1913 by dissolving the
National Assembly and outlawing the Kuomintang, Sun Yat-sen established a government-in-exile in
Tokyo and employed the Blue Sky with a White Sun flag as the national ROC flag. He continued using this design when the Kuomintang established a
rival government in
Guangzhou in 1917. The Blue Sky with a White Sun flag was made the official national flag on 17 December 1928 after the
Northern Expedition that overthrew the Beijing government. On 29 December 1928, Chinese warlord
Zhang Xueliang announced that all banners of the Beiyang government in
Manchuria would be
replaced by the Blue Sky with a White Sun flag, thus nominally uniting China under one government. During the
Second Sino-Japanese War, the invading
Japanese established a
variety of puppet governments using several flag designs. The "
Reformed Government", established in March 1938 in
Nanjing, employed the Five-Colored Flag. When
Wang Jingwei was slated to take over the
Japanese-installed government in Nanjing in 1940, he demanded to use the modern flag as a means to challenge the authority of the
Nationalist government in
Chongqing under
Chiang Kai-shek and position himself as the rightful successor to Sun Yat-sen. However, the Japanese preferred the Five-Colored flag. As a compromise, the Japanese suggested adding a triangular yellow pennant on top with the slogan "Peace, Anticommunism, National Construction" () in black, but this was rejected by Wang. In the end, Wang and the Japanese agreed that the yellow banner was to be used outdoors only until 1943, when the banner was abandoned, leaving two rival governments with the same flag, each claiming to be the legitimate national government of China. After the
Chinese Civil War in 1949, the ROC government led by Chiang Kai-shek relocated its government and its institutions to the island of
Taiwan. On the
mainland, CCP forces of
Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China (PRC) and adopted their own national flag. On 23 October 1954, the National Emblem and National Flag of the Republic of China Act () was promulgated by the
Legislative Yuan to specify the size, measure, ratio, production, and management of the flag. {{Gallery |alt1=Flag proposal 1 | Teo Eng Hock and his wife's proposal 1 for the ROC flag |alt2=Flag proposal 2 | Proposal 2 for the ROC flag. |alt3=Flag proposal 3 | Proposal 3 for the ROC flag, later adopted as the Flag of the Republic of China Army |alt4=Flag proposal 4 | Proposal 4 for the ROC flag, later officially adopted as the national flag
People's Republic of China On 4 July 1949, the sixth working group of the
Preparatory Committee of the New Political Consultative Conference created a notice to submit designs for the national flag. After subsequent revisions, the notice was published in the papers ''
People's Daily, Beiping Liberation News
, Xinmin News
, Dazhong Daily
, Guangming Daily, Jinbu Daily
and Tianjin Daily'' during the period 15–26 July. The list of requirements for the national flag were also posted in the notice: • Chinese characteristics (geography, nationality, history, culture, etc.); • Power characteristics (people's democratic government, led by the working class and based on the worker-peasant alliance); • The shape should be rectangular and the length-breadth ratio should be 3:2; • The color should mainly be bright red (an early draft of the notice had the color as dark red, but this was changed to bright red by
Zhou Enlai). designs had been sent to the flag committee, including input from committee members themselves such as
Guo Moruo and
Tan Kah Kee. From 16 to 20 August, the designs were viewed at the
Beijing Hotel and culled down to a list of 38. . On the morning of 23 September, the representatives of the CPPCC discussed the national flags, but came to no conclusion. Some disliked the symbolism which Zeng attached to the four smaller stars, and said it should not include the bourgeoisie. The design Mao and others liked had a giant golden star in the corner on a red flag that was charged with a golden horizontal bar. But this design was strongly opposed by
Zhang Zhizhong, who saw the golden bar as symbolizing China being divided into two. That night, Peng Guanghan () recommended Zeng's design to Zhou Enlai. Zhou was satisfied with it and asked for the creation of a larger copy of the design. Tan Kah Kee also gave his advice to Mao and Zhou that the power characteristics take precedence over Chinese geography characteristics, so there was no need to insist on the golden bar that symbolized the
Yellow River. Two days later, Mao had a meeting in his office about the flag. He persuaded everyone to adopt Zeng's design, with some slight modifications. According to earlier discussions at the Beijing Hotel, the
hammer and sickle from Zeng's original design was removed since it was similar to the
flag of the Soviet Union. On 29 September, the new flag was published in the ''People's Daily'', so the design could be copied by other local authorities. The flag was officially unveiled and raised for the first time by Mao Zedong in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square on 1 October 1949, at the formal
announcement of the
People's Republic of China. The first flag flown over Tiananmen Square was sewn together by Zhao Wenrui (), a seamstress who finished the task around 1pm on 30 September. Zeng had a hard time believing that his design was picked, due to the missing hammer and sickle from the giant star. However, he was officially congratulated by the General Office of the Central People's Government as the designer of the flag and received 5 million yuan for his work. On 27 September 1954, the
1st National People's Congress adopted the first
Constitution of the People's Republic of China, which constitutionally established the "Five-star Red Flag" as the national flag of China. {{Gallery |alt1=A red flag with four small golden stars and one giant gold star at the top left corner. In the giant gold star, a red crossed hammer and sickle is placed in the center. | The original design submitted by
Zeng Liansong | The "
Yellow River" flag design originally preferred by
Mao Zedong |alt2=Flag proposal 2 | Proposal 2 for the PRC flag |alt3=Flag proposal 3 | Proposal 3 for the PRC flag |alt4=Flag proposal 4 | Proposal 4 for the PRC flag {{Gallery |alt1=Proposal by Xiao Shufang | Proposal by Xiao Shufang |alt2=Proposal by Wu Yuzhang | Proposal by
Wu Yuzhang |alt3=Proposal by Ai Qing | Proposal by
Ai Qing |alt4=Proposal by Zhu De | Proposal by
Zhu De |alt5=Proposal by Liang Congjie | Proposal by
Liang Congjie |alt6=Proposal by Guo Moruo (design 8) | Proposal by
Guo Moruo |alt7=Proposal by Guo Moruo | Proposal by
Guo Moruo ==Flags of the Special Administrative Regions==