A blue silhouette with mountains, sea and plains on white: the flag of North Gyeongsang hides a flying heron in its central gap.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.
It is a rectangular field —the cloth of the flag —with a 2:3 ratio, white, with a blue lozenge-shaped mark in the centre and, below it, the name of the province written in Korean.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of North Gyeongsang, the largest province of South Korea, is white with a blue mark. Those few patches draw the whole territory at once: mountains, sea and plains, with a bird flying in the gap they leave.
The provincial ordinance was approved on 13 August 1997. The emblem has the shape of a lozenge, taken from traditional Korean ornament, and below it carries the word 경상북도 in black. It is not a coat of arms: it is an abstract map.
There have only been two flags, separated by the 1997 redesign.
1966-1997
Navy field with a golden emblem: an apple, the star fruit of the area, mixed with the initials ㄱ and ㅂ of the name.
1997
The current abstract landscape, with its heron hidden.
Blue at the top
the big, high mountains of the province.
Blue on the right
the East Sea, where North Gyeongsang touches the ocean.
Blue at the bottom
the fertile fields.
White gap
a heron in flight, the bird of the province, which is also the Nakdong river.
Lozenge
pride, unity and an enterprising spirit, with a shape from traditional Korean art.
Colours
blue means hope, development and a vision of the future; white, friendly treatment.
The 1966 flag showed a golden apple, the most famous fruit of the area, integrated with the initial letters of the name in Korean.
In the Korean transcription, the consonant ㄱ sounds like the g in gato: that is why the old logos of the two Gyeongsangs seem to use Latin letters without doing so.
The heron of the current flag is not drawn: it is the white gap left by the blue patches, the same trick as the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo.
Test what you have read about the flag of North Gyeongsang.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: North Gyeongsang Province Government, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
