The flag of Vietnam features a yellow five-pointed star on a red background. The flag is a symbol of the country’s struggle against domination by the French and communist leadership. The star on the flag represents the country’s national unity despite its turbulent past.
The first Vietnamese flag was of the Tay Song Dynasty in 1778. They had a red flag with a yellow border and a yellow disc at the center. The Nguyen dynasty, under emperor Gia Long, took over from 1802 to 1820 and the flag changed to yellow with a blue border and a red sun at the center. In 1890, Emperor Thành Thái designed the South Vietnam flag. This was the original design, later adapted by Lê Văn Đệ and by Emperor Bảo Đại. It had a yellow background with three red horizontal stripes.
The French traders started arriving in Vietnam from 1615 and in the process, began spreading Christianity. The Vietnamese Kingdom detained several of them, and in 1834, the French Navy intervened to free them. The French invasion into Vietnam began then, and by 1884, Vietnam was completely under French rule. Annam, Tonkin, and Cochinchina represented the central, north and south Vietnam and integrated into the French Indochina union in 1887. The flag, which the Cochinchina had adopted before, was a blue-white-red vertical tricolor.
In 1920, the Nguyen Dynasty changed its flag to a thick red vertical stripe, running through a yellow background. French Indochina started flying the Protectorate flag too in 1923. It had the French tricolor flag at the top left corner of a yellow background. In 1940, Japan invaded Vietnam and their flag, a red sun on a white background, flew for a short time. The Japanese conquered the Empire of Vietnam and adopted a yellow flag with three red horizontal stripes (with the center horizontal stripe broken). This flag flew under emperor Bảo Đại’s reign. The three stripes were a representation of the Qian Trigram or Quẻ Càn, a heaven divination sign. They later represented the north, south and central regions of Vietnam.
In 1941, Hồ Chí Minh, a Vietnamese revolutionary leader, led the nationalist liberation movement called Việt Minh. They had a communist ideology and were seeking the independence of Vietnam from both the French and the Japanese. They adopted a flag with a massive yellow pointed star on a red background in 1945. The flag, according to articles by Sơn Tùng, was designed by Nguyễn Hữu Tiến, one of the uprising leaders just before he was executed in 1941 by the French people.
The Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II and Ho Chi Minh, the Việt Minh leader, declared Vietnam independent in Hanoi. He adopted the yellow background and five-pointed star flag by decree. It became the official flag of North Vietnam.
The French returned in October, 1945 but received challenges from the Việt Minh. Later, Cochinchina was declared a republic and in 1946, adopted a Quẻ Càn flag that had a yellow background and blue stripes. On March 1946, the National Assembly voted to keep the Việt Minh flag, and after the Geneva Accord between France and Vietnam in 1954, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam became the national government.
The flag was modified on November 30, 1955, making the star slightly smaller with straighter edges. After the end of the Vietnam war, the South adopted the flag which later led to the unification of the North and South. On July 2, 1976, the two became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Colour
According to a poem written by Nguyễn Hữu Tiến, the yellow color was for the Vietnamese race, the red background for blood, and the five-pointed star represented the workers, peasants, intellectuals, soldiers, and traders.
Shape
The shape of the Vietnamese flag is rectangular, with its width equal to 2/3rds of its length.
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