Flag of North Korea

What the flag of North Korea looks like

The flag of North Korea, officially the flag of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a horizontal design that was defined with a width-to-length ratio of 1:2; a constitutional amendment ratified on 23 March 2026 changed the ratio to 1:1.65. It is built from five stripes. A wide red band fills the middle. Above and below it sit narrow white stripes, and outside those are two broad blue stripes along the top and bottom edges.

On the red band, near the hoist (the side nearest the flagpole), is a white circle. Inside the circle is a red five-pointed star with one point facing up. The red band takes up about three fifths of the flag's height, which is why red is the dominant color in any picture of it.

The design is clearly different from the flag of its southern neighbor. The South Korean flag is white with a red and blue taegeuk in the center and four black trigrams in the corners. If you are looking for the small icon version, see the North Korea flag emoji, which shows the same blue, white and red bands and the star in the circle.

North Korea flag meaning and symbolism

Different sources give different explanations of the flag's symbolism, and the colors are not given a meaning in the constitution's description of the flag. The explanations below are the ones most often quoted.

• Red symbolizes anti-Japanese fervor and the blood shed by Korean patriots, according to an official account attributed to Kim Il Sung. The US CIA World Factbook describes it as revolutionary traditions.
• Blue stands for the spirit of the Korean people fighting for world peace and progress in the official account. The World Factbook gives sovereignty, peace and friendship.
• White stands for one bloodline, one land, one language and one culture in the official account. The World Factbook gives purity, strength and dignity.
• The red star is a national symbol and represents socialism, according to the World Factbook.

A Soviet-Korean interpreter, Pak Il, gave a different account, in which the red stripe stood for the land of the new Korea lit by the red star of communism and the blue stripes for the seas around the peninsula. The traditional Korean flag, the white Taegukgi with the taegeuk (yin-yang) symbol, was not kept in the northern national flag.

History of the North Korean flag

Korea adopted its first national flag, the Taegukgi, in 1883, a white flag with the taegeuk and four trigrams, which is the ancestor of the South Korean flag today. Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 and ruled until 1945. After Japan's defeat the peninsula was divided into a Soviet zone in the north and a US zone in the south. The Taegukgi was widely used in both zones, and it was only in 1947 that the Soviets began proposing a new flag to their Korean allies.

The new flag was written into the provisional constitution in February 1948 and was officially adopted on 8 September 1948, with the passing of North Korea's first constitution. The North Korean government credits Kim Il Sung, the first leader, with designing it, and the artist Kim Chu-gyong was also credited for a time. Pak Il, a Soviet-Korean interpreter, claimed instead that the design came from the Soviet government, and another Soviet-Korean, Chong Sangjin, backed up his account.

The flag has kept the same basic design since then, and a national flag law passed on 22 October 1992 standardized it. North Korea marks 9 September as its Foundation Day. The flag is flown at places such as government buildings, courtrooms and diplomatic missions abroad, under rules set in the national flag law.

North Korea and South Korea flags

The two Koreas do not share a flag, and their national flags look nothing alike. The northern flag is red, white and blue with a star, and the southern one is white with a taegeuk. Both governments claim to represent the whole of Korea, and the war that began in 1950 ended with an armistice in 1953 rather than a peace treaty, so the conflict has never been formally ended.

When teams from both countries have marched together, for example at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018, they carried a special Korean unification flag. It shows a pale blue outline of the whole Korean Peninsula on a white field. It is used in sport and at some joint events and is not the flag of either state. You can find a gallery of other national flags at flags of the world.