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Myanmar

The Republic of The Union of Myanmar

by António Martins-Tuválkin, 12 June 2008
Flag adopted 21 October 2010

National Flag
Construction Sheet
President's Flag

See also:

National Flag

According to reports the constitutional convention has now finished its job and the constitution has found its final wording. The flag enshrined in the final document is the yellow, green, and red flag reported earlier, but the star is not positioned in the upper, green stripe, as suggested before. In the final version the star is centered and enlarged so that it reaches into the upper and lower stripes.

Quoting "The New Light of Myanmar" newspaper for 3. September 2007, here is the section on the flag:

Chapter XIII
State Flag, State Seal, National Anthem and the Capital Regarding the State Flag,
"(1) The State Flag shall be prescribed as follows: The Flag is marked with yellow, green and red stripes in a proportionate ratio. On the green stripe in the centre of the State Flag is a large white star covering all the three stripes directing upwards.
"(2) Law shall be promulgated concerning the State Flag."

The drawing above is based on the report in "The Irrawaddy" for 3. September 2007, see: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8478. It should be emphasized that the flag is far from being run up the flagpole. The constitution has yet to be adopted and it remains unclear when it will come into effect (or if it will at all). Unsurprisingly, both the constitution and the new flag is being criticized by the opposition to Myanmar's military government.
Jan Oskar Engene, 9 September 2007

At website http://burmadigest.info/2008/03/28/2008-constitution-of-burma/ the new State Constitution of Myanmar (2008) is published (in Burmese language). At the page nr.190 of the pdf-files http://burmadigest.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/constitution-2008.pdf one finds the images of the new emblem and of the new flag.
Jens Pattke, 5 June 2008

The text of this draft constitution is available in English together with draft constitutions of several states (all in Myanma and English) where you can find descriptions (and images in some cases) of the official flags at: http://www.burmalibrary.org/show.php?cat=1140.
Chrystian Kretowicz, 31 August 2009

A quick exchange of emails with Jos Poels revealed that the same document is available from the website of the Myanmar mission at the UN in Switzerland, indicating the document has official status:
http://mission.itu.ch/MISSIONS/Myanmar/pressrelease_PMGev/NationalConstitution(Draft)2008.pdf.
Jan Oskar Engene, 5 June 2008

Xinhua People's Daily Online reported that Myanmar officially hoisted the new flag - the one that we already know with three horizontal stripes of yellow-green-red and white five-pointed star in the middle: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7173655.html. Also reported by http://infox.ru/authority/foreign/2010/10/21/Myanma_pomyenyala_fl.phtml.
Valentin Poposki, 21 October 2010

More information and a picture about the new Myanmar flag is posted at: http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/8177818/myanmar-gets-new-flag-official-name-anthem/. The official name of the country has became: Republic of the Union of Myanmar.
Zoltan Horvath, 21 October 2010

Quoting the AP dispatch, 21 October 2010, relating the event:
"[...] Government offices replaced the old standard with the new one at exactly 3 p.m. At a fire station in central Yangon, blue-uniformed officers lined up at attention during the replacement ceremony. The new flag has horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a big white star in the middle. The announcement of the new flag was made on state television just prior to the ceremonies, which were supposed to take place simultaneously all over the country.
"We received the instruction to bring down the old flag and to fly the new flag at 3 p.m.," said an education officer in Pathein township in Irrawaddy Division, who added that shortly before the ceremony his office still had not received its replacement. The 2008 constitution pushed through by the military called for fresh national symbols, including a new flag whose colors of yellow, green and red would stand for solidarity, peace and tranquility, and courage and decisiveness. Still, the abrupt release of the new flag came as surprise. [...]"
Ivan Sache, 21 October 2010

It may be worth of noting that the old flag was ordered to be burned (I guess in proper ceremonious manner, as the old US flags are commonly burned). More curious is the order that "the old flag had to be lowered by someone born on a Tuesday and the new flag had to be raised by someone born on a Wednesday".
Željko Heimer, 21 October 2010

Construction sheet

by António Martins-Tuválkin, 12 June 2008

Trusting this document (near p. 190), the new flag of Burma is a horizontal tricolor of yellow over green over red with a large upright five-pointed white star horizontally centered on it, overlapping all three stripes. The exact image used on the Constitution (at least in its pdf version) uses for each stripe multiple contiguous areas of similar color shades, surely the result of ill-chosen jpg-format for the flag image, but not less authoritative for that. Much worse, and harder to get right, is the fact that the star is shown clearly squeezed horizontally, enscribed in a vertically elongated ellipse of ratio ~79:85. Stretching the whole flag back (108%), the star becomes a regular starry pentagon and the overall ratio 4:7. The circle enscribing the star has a diameter of 6/7ths of the flag height; it is not vertically centered, but offset to the bottom so that the gap between the flag edge at the top doubles that at the bottom. The overall specs therefore seem to be: ratio is 168:294, height of each stripe is 56, diameter of the circle enscribing the star is 144, distance between the upper star tip and the flag edge is 32.

The shades of red and yellow used in the Constitution pdf cluster around respectively RGB:255-0-0 and RGB:255-255-0, which are our own default values for those colors. Green is bluish and greyish, though, around BS RGB:51-153-102. Seeing however so many obviously unwanted artifacts in the Constitution pdf image, I chosen a default value for the attached images.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 12 June 2008

President's Flag

by Martin Grieve

Petersen (1971) shows an orange flag with a peacock as the president's flag.
Michael Smuda, 22 October 2001

Crampton (1990) shows a very similar flag and says: "The flag of the President (1948-62) was orange with a peacock in the centre." However, Barraclough
(1965) still showed the orange flag with the peacock, while Barraclough and Compton (1981) says: "Prior to 1974 there was a flag for the President, but it is
uncertain if this still is in use".
Mark Sensen, 22 October 2001

Pedersen (1970) reported "The flag shows Burma's national symbol, the peacock, which was used from about 1800 as a Royal Beast by the last King of Burma."
Ivan Sache, 2 May 2002

Evans (1959), Carr (1961), Kannik (1959) all imply this flag was in use since 1948.
Jarig Bakker, 17 September 2002