China Flag Colors, Meaning & History

China flag
Color Palette
ColorsHEX CodeRGBCMYK
Red#EE1C25238, 28, 370, 88, 84, 7
Yellow#FFFF00255, 255, 00, 0, 100, 0

The Chinese flag is made of a red field, with a big star and four smaller stars in the upper hoist corner.

Meaning of the Chinese flag

The red color represents the communist philosophy. The big star represents the Chinese Communist Party or China itself as a nation. It also represented the communist party’s plans. Later, the stars became the symbol of minorities in China.  The four smaller stars were used to represent the four social classes in Chinese society. It is also said that they represent the four political parties. Now they represent the different ethnicities and minorities in China.

History of the Chinese Flag

The Chinese flag got its red color from the Han ethnicity, which constitutes the majority of China’s people. The Traditional color of the Han is the red color. The first Chinese flag was designed in 1912, with five horizontal stripes of yellow, red, black, white, and blue, to represent the 5 major ethnicities in China. Choosing 5 stripes was based on the cultural symbolism of the number 5 in Chinese culture. The red flag has been unofficially used by communists since the 1920s. However, it became the official flag of the country later in 1949, after the revolutionary communist philosophy dominated China, and after Mao Zedong expelled the nationalists, the flag with the 5 stars was adopted. The new flag was designed to represent the new People’s Republic of China.