Flag of the Republic of Vietnam

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Flag ratio: 2:3

The flag of former South Vietnam was designed by Emperor Thành Thái in 1890 and was used by Emperor Bảo Đại in 1948. It was the flag of the former State of Vietnam (the French-controlled areas in both Northern and Southern Vietnam) from 1949 to 1955 and later of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) from 1955 until April 30, 1975 when the south unconditionally surrendered to the north, where it was officially joined in a unified Vietnam a year later. The flag consists of a yellow field and three horizontal red stripes to and can be explained as either symbolising the unifying blood running through northern, central, and southern Vietnam, or as representing the symbol for "south" (as in, south from China), in Daoist trigrams.

It is still used by some Vietnamese immigrants now living in other countries. From February 2003 to January 2006, in the United States, nine states, three counties and 76 cities have adopted resolutions recognizing the yellow flag as the "Vietnamese Heritage & Freedom Flag".^[1]

1 Origins
2 Political significance
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Origins

First flag of the Nguyễn Dynasty, 1890 - 1920. Same as the flag of South Vietnam.

Former second flag of the Nguyễn Dynasty of Vietnam under Khải Định, used from 1920 to 1945

Flag of the Empire of Vietnam which was a Japanese puppet state, 9 March 1945 - 22 August 1945.

Republic of South Vietnam flag from 30 April 1975 until unification with North Vietnam

In 1802-1820, Emperor Gia Long, the yellow flag was also used as the symbol of the Empire of Vietnam.

In 1890, the Emperor Thành Thái passed a decree, changing the flag with Chinese characters to a new flag. The yellow flag with three red stripes was created and used for the first time as the national flag (Đại Nam National Flag 1890-1920). It should be noted that the yellow flag with three red stripes (called The Yellow Flag for short) is the first true "national flag" of the Vietnamese people for it reflects the aspiration and hope of the people, not just the emperors, for independence and unification of the Viet nation.^{[citation needed]}

In 1916-1925, after Emperors Thanh Thai and Duy Tan were exiled to Africa and obeying the French, Emperor Khải Định issued a decree to change the national flag, the Yellow Flag, which signified the three unified regions (North, Central, and South) was replaced by a yellow flag with one red horizontal stripe. This yellow flag with one red stripe was also called the “Long Tinh” flag because it was transformed from the original Long Tinh flag of the Nguyen Dynasty.

In 1945, during Tran Trong Kim's government that is called the Empire of Vietnam by Japan, the two red bands were added to the middle broken red band to form the Quẻ Ly Flag. The Quẻ Ly Flag was the official flag of Vietnam at that time. Quẻ Ly is a divination trigram of "fabulous unicorn", sixth of the Bát Quái (the Eight Trigrams): Càn, Khâm, Cấn, Chấn, Tốn, Ly, Khôn, Đoài. This divination sign of fabulous unicorn represents the sun, fire, beam of light, and civilization. And more importantly, it also represents the direction of south, emphasizing that Vietnam, as the lands "passed the clouds" (see Yunnan) is southward from China.(See I Ching).

In 1948, when the former Emperor Bảo Đại became the Chief of State of Vietnam, he ordered to change the broken red band (which was then the central element of the Vietnamese flag) into a continuous red band, and form the Yellow Flag with three yellow red bands.

On 2 June 1948, the Chief of the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam, Brigadier General Nguyen Van Xuan, signed an ordinance to specify the characteristics of the Vietnamese National Flag as follows: "The national emblem is a flag of yellow background, the height of which is equal to two-thirds of its width. In the middle of the flag and along its entire width, there are three horizontal red bands. Each band has a height equal to one-fifteenth of the width. These three red bands are separated from one another by a space of the band's height."

The three red bands have the divination sign of Quẻ Càn, the first of the Eight Trigrams mentioned above. Quẻ Càn represents heaven. Based on the worldview of Vietnamese people, Quẻ Càn indicates the South Sky, the Vietnamese Nation, Vietnamese people, and the people's power. Another interpretation places the three red bands as symbols of the three regions of Vietnam: North, Central, and South. The yellow or gold background on the flag represents the Vietnamese skin color.

The flag was used by the Republic of Vietnam (more commonly known as South Vietnam) for the duration of that state's existence (1954 - 1975). It was abolished by Vietnamese government on 30 April 1975, when the South unconditionally surrendered to the North.

[edit] Political significance

The flag of the former South Vietnam (also used under Emperor Thanh Thai) remains highly controversial, particularly in the case of Vietnamese Americans (and other Vietnamese around the world who fled Vietnam after the war), who call it the "Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag."

In Vietnam at present, the flag is prohibited by law from public display.

A Westminster, California street festooned with the flag

In the United States, virtually no Vietnamese Americans use the current communist flag of Vietnam and instead use this flag as their symbol.

When a Vietnamese American video tape store owner displayed the communist flag in front of his store in Westminster, California in 1999, a month-long protest against it climaxed when 15,000 people held a candlelight vigil one night, sparking the Hitek Incident (Hitek was the name of the store).^[2]
A faux pas by the United States Postal Service in using the current Vietnamese flag in a brochure to represent the Vietnamese American community that it serves cause some outrage among Vietnamese Americans and resulted in an apology.
In 2004, some Vietnamese American students at the California State University, Fullerton threatened to walk out on their graduation ceremony to demand that the university use the former flag of South Vietnam as well as the current flag of Vietnam to represent its Vietnamese students. This resulted in the university scrapping all foreign flags for the ceremony.
In 2006, Vietnamese-American students at the University of Texas at Arlington protested the use of the communist flag in the Hall of Flags in Nedderman Hall and the exclusion of the South Vietnamese flag at a cultural diversity show during International Week.^[3] After weeks of protests, the university decided to scrap all flags from the display.
Prior to President George W. Bush's visit to Vietnam in 2006, the White House website briefly displayed this flag before replacing it with the current flag of Vietnam.^[4]
The lobbying efforts of Vietnamese Americans resulted in the state governments of California^[5] and Ohio^[6] to adopt it to symbolize Vietnamese Americans in 2006.