South Korea

The Korean national flag is called Taegukki. The meaning of Korean National Flag is very philosophical. The origin comes from the old oriental philosophy called the theory of Um-Yang, in Chinese pronunciation Yin-Yang. Yin means dark and cold, while Yang means bright and hot. The idea of Yin-Yang is supposed to be originated from the old Korean philosophy of Samshin meaning three gods. A very old book called Chuyok or Iching in Chinese, which was written by (a) Chinese several thousands years ago, claims all objects and events in the world are expressed by the movement of yin and yang. For example, the moon is yin while the sun is yang; the earth is yin and the heaven is yang; a woman is yin and a man is yang; the night is yin and the day is yang; the winter is yin and the summer is yang, etc. Yin and yang are relative. Therefore, A can be yin with respect to B while A can also be yang with respect to C. For instance, the spring is yin w.r.t. the summer and it is at the same time yang w.r.t. the winter. Yin and yang are opposite and struggle each other while they cooperate in harmony. The harmonious state of the movement of yin and yang is called Taeguki, or Taikukkki, Taichi in Chinese, which is also the name of the Korean national flag, i.e. Taegukki. Ki means a flag. (See the similarity between the concept of Yin-Yang-Taichi and the dialectics of thesis-antithesis-synthesis.) The upper half circle, red, of Taeguk means yang and the lower half circle, blue, means yin. They stand for the state of harmony of yin and yang.

The symbols, called Kwae, in the four corners, mean the principle of movement and harmony. Basically, each Kwae consists of three bars that can be either broken or unbroken bars. A broken bar stands for yin while an unbroken bar stands for yang. For example, the upper left Kwae, called Kun, is composed of three solid unbroken bars. And the lower left Kwae, called Yi, is composed of two unbroken bars and one broken bar in between. Since one bar can be either broken or unbroken, i.e. same concept as bit as in the binary computer world, three bars can express 2³ = 8 combinations. If you use four bars you can express 2⁴=64 combinations; 10 bars, 2¹⁰=1024, etc. Therefore the more bars you use the more different situation you can express with Kwae. Among so many states of Kwae, i.e. principle of movement of objects and events, four basic Kwae are used in the Korean National Flag. Those are Kun meaning heaven, Yi meaning fire, Kam meaning water, and Kon meaning earth. Each of them symbolizes a different state of movement.

	___		___		_ _		_ _
Kun	___	Yi	_ _	Kam	___	Kon	_ _
	___		___		_ _		_ _

The white color of background stands for the peace and the purity of the Korean people who have loved to wear white colored clothes. Therefore, the Korean people have been called the white-clad nation.

To conclude, the symbols, Yin, Yang, Kun, Yi, Kam, and Kon, express the principle of the movement of all objects in the universe and the movement of the universe itself. It also stands for peace and harmony.
Jorge Candeias, 14 October 1997

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The white field represents the people's purity and their desire for peace, while the central emblem is the red and blue yin-yang symbol, depicting the concepts of creation and development through duality and balance. Surrounding this are four black KWAE symbols, which are taken from the I CHING and represent the four seasons, the four compass points, the four elements, and the sun, moon, earth, and heaven. They denote the process of yin and yang going through a spiral of change and growth.
Nick Artimovich, 01 November 1996

from the official site of the (South) Korean government: http://www.bluehouse.go.kr/english/introduce/aboutkorea/index.html

The Korean flag is called taegukki. Its design symbolizes the principles of the yin and yang in Oriental philosophy. The circle in the center of the flag is divided into two equal parts. The upper red section represents the positive cosmic forces of the yang. Conversely, the lower blue section represents the negative cosmic forces of the yin. The two forces together embody the concepts of continual movement and the balance and harmony that characterize the sphere of infinity. The circle is surrounded by four trigrams, one in each corner. Each trigram symbolizes one of the four universal elements: heaven, earth, fire and water."

Ivan Sache, 29 December 1998

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Color specifications

According to "Standard Shades of the Korean Flag 1997-10", issued by the Ministry of Information in 1997, the officially recommended colours are red 186C and blue 294C in the Pantone Matching System.
Christopher Southworth, 25 September 2004

The Pantone colors reported by Chris are confirmed by the South Korean Embassy in Russia (source, http://www.infokorea.ru/flag/ and the second link below)
The main colors used for the South Korean flag is in CIE and also Munsell. http://www.mopas.go.kr is the page about the flag from the Ministry of Public Administration and Security. The first link from the S. Korea Embassy provides the English translation for the colors in both systems:
"Standard color shades of Taegeukgi, the Korean National Flag are follows: in the CIE System, the x, y, and Y coordinates for the red are x=0.5640, y=0.3194, Y=15.3; for the blue, x=0.1556, y=0.1354, Y=6.5. Alternatively, in the Munsell System of Color Notation, the red corresponds to 6.0R 4.5/14, and the blue to 5.0PB 3.0/12."
The second link provides the Munsell colors for black and white; N 0.5 and N 9.5, respectively. For those two colors in the CIE system, the government leaves them blank.
Zachary Harden, 02 March 2010

The colors were not specified until 1997, when the government decided to standardize specifications for the flag. On 25 October 1997, a Presidential ordinance on the standard specification of the South Korean flag was promulgated, and that specification was acceded by the National Flag Law in July 2007. Colors are defined in legislation by the Munsell and CIE color systems.

The legal documents are:
National Flag Law issued in July 2007: https://www.law.go.kr (in Korean)

Presidential ordinance on the standard specification of the National Flag Act of the Republic of Korea (original version issued in 1997): https://www.law.go.kr (in Korean)

And its Schedule 2 gives color scheme of national flag.
https://www.law.go.kr/LSW

Other sources for colors:

The Flag Manual - Beijing 2008 gives Pantone colors: PMS 294 (blue), PMS 186 (red), and PMS Black.

The Album des Pavillons 2000 [pay00] (Corr. No. 3.) gives approximate colors in Pantone and CMYK systems:
Red: Pantone 186c, CMYK 0-90-80-50
Blue: Pantone 294c, CMYK 100-55-0-15
Sky Blue: Pantone 300c, CMYK 100-45-0-0
Yellow: Pantone 1365c, CMYK 0-30-80-0

Flags and Anthems Manual London 2012 [loc12] gives Pantone colors: PMS 186 (red), PMS 294 (blue), and PMS Black.

The Album des Pavillons 2023 already specifies the colors of the flags in three color systems.
Blue: Pantone 294c, CMYK 100-85-34-14, RGB 0-47-108
Blue: Pantone 300c, CMYK 90-62-0-0, RGB 0-94-104
Red: Pantone 186c, CMYK 14-100-79-4, RGB 200-16-46
Yellow: Pantone 1365c, CMYK 0-29-78-0, RGB 252-191-73

Vexilla Mundi gives colors in Pantone system: PMS White, PMS 186C (red), PMS 294C (blue), and PMS Black.

Wikipedia refers to legislations, gives a construction sheet, and gives the following color values.
White: Munsell N 9.5, CIE (x, y, Y) —, Pantone —, Hex triplet  (converted from CIE) #FFFFFF
Red: Munsell 6.0R 4.5/14, CIE (x, y, Y) 0.5640, 0.3194, 15.3, Pantone 186 C, Hex triplet  (converted from CIE) #CD2E3A
Blue: Munsell 5.0PB 3.0/12, CIE (x, y, Y) 0.1556, 0.1354, 6.5, Pantone 294 C, Hex triplet  (converted from CIE) #0047A0
Black: Munsell N 0.5, CIE (x, y, Y) —, Pantone —, Hex triplet  (converted from CIE) #000000

Please note that Pantone colors originated from Korean Embassy in Moscow as recommended colors for flags: http://www.infokorea.ru/flag/

Flag Color Codes gives the following color values:
Red: Hex #CD2E3A, RGB 205-46-58, CMYK 0-100-80-5, Pantone 186, RAL 3025
Blue: Hex #0F64CD, RGB 15-100-205, CMYK 100-74-0-45, Pantone 294, RAL 5015
White: Hex #FFFFFF, RGB 255-255-255, CMYK 0-0-0-0, Pantone N/A, RAL N/A
Black: Hex #000000, RGB 0-0-0, CMYK 0-0-0-100, Pantone Black, RAL 9005

Zoltan Horvath, 23 June 2024

The concept of "Nation" or "Country" in eastern society is completely different from that of western society. If there are some more members from Asia, they may raise their hands for me. At least traditionally, the "Nation" is the target of absolute loyalty. Although the more individualized way of life might dilute such kind of thought, it is still in the basement of everybody's mind.

In that reason, everything which can signify the Nation itself is regarded as somewhat sacred. Not exactly sacred. But not abusable. It is quite rare for Koreans to use National flag somewhere else except for some important national ceremony, not to mention of modification of national flag.

As far as I know, in the Korean history, there were no political party which has their own flag which is from the modification of National flag except for the one. The one is the current major opposition party (I think so. not exactly. It may be now ruling party(?!;)).) But the shape is completely different from the National flag that without their explanation, you may not notice that that flag is from the national flag.

When I visited USA, I found many people put their national flag (miniaturized version) on their desk. Numerous national flags (stars & stripes) were in the office. It was quite impressive in the sense of Korean. They looks really patriotic. But that is their daily lives. Simply they do so since they like the design of stars & stripes.
Gyudong Kim

On 2 July 2007, "Chosun Ilbo" (English edition) reported the use of a faulty South Korean flag in video messages featuring President of the Republic Roh Moo-hyun. The emblem in the middle of the flag is vertically mirrored. Specially manufactured for the video shoot broadcast on 28 June 2007, the flag was quickly spotted by a citizen as erroneous and immediately destroyed. The very same erroneous flag already appeared as painted on the President's plane during his official travel to Spain and Italy in February 2007.
Source: http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200707/200707020029.html
Ivan Sache, 14 May 2009