Flags of Myanmar

Military rule (State Administration Council)

Who & why: the military (Tatmadaw), alleging electoral fraud in the November 2020 election won decisively by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, seizes power in a coup on 1 February 2021, detaining civilian leaders and declaring a state of emergency. Widespread civil disobedience and armed resistance follow, and the military-led State Administration Council continues to govern the country amid ongoing conflict.

What it represents: the same 2010 flag, unchanged since it first flew, now representing military rather than civilian rule.

Democratic transition (civilian-led government)

Who & why: a 2008 military-drafted constitution and 2010 elections usher in a nominally civilian government under President Thein Sein in 2011, beginning a period of political and economic liberalization; Aung San Suu Kyi, released from years of house arrest, and her party win landslide elections in 2015 and 2020, though the military retains guaranteed parliamentary seats and key ministries throughout.

What it represents: the flag adopted in 2010 under the new constitution — yellow, green, and red bands with a central white star — replacing the earlier socialist-era design.

Military-dominated rule (Ne Win era through SPDC)

Who & why: General Ne Win, who seized power in a 1962 coup, formalizes one-party military-socialist rule under a 1974 constitution as the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma; a 1988 pro-democracy uprising is violently suppressed, and the military renames itself the State Law and Order Restoration Council, later the State Peace and Development Council, renaming the country Myanmar in 1989 while continuing to rule by force through this entire span.

What it represents: the 1974 socialist-era flag, a cogwheel encircled by a rice stalk and stars in a blue canton on red, symbolizing the ruling party's peasant-worker ideology.

Union of Burma (independent)

Who & why: Burma gains independence from Britain on 4 January 1948, following independence hero Aung San's 1947 assassination just months before it was achieved; the new union struggles with ethnic insurgencies and political instability through the 1950s, until General Ne Win's 1962 coup ends civilian parliamentary government and installs military rule that persists, in one form or another, for most of the decades that follow.

What it represents: a large white star (union) flanked by smaller stars for the constituent states, in a blue canton on red-white-blue stripes, the newly independent union's chosen national design.

Japanese occupation (State of Burma)

Who & why: Japanese forces invade in early 1942 and drive out British administration by May; Japan installs a nominally independent State of Burma under Ba Maw in August 1943, hoping to win nationalist support, while the exiled British colonial government continues to plan for reoccupation. Aung San, who had initially collaborated with Japan, switches sides in 1945 to join the Allied advance that retakes the country.

What it represents: a golden peacock, a traditional Burmese royal and national symbol dating to the Konbaung dynasty, on a green field — the flag of Ba Maw's Japanese-sponsored republic.

British Burma

Who & why: the third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885 ends the Konbaung dynasty entirely; Britain formally annexes what remains of the kingdom on 1 January 1886, initially administering Burma as a province of British India before separating it into its own colony in 1937. A nationalist movement builds through the interwar decades, and the country's push for self-rule is interrupted by the Japanese invasion of 1942.

What it represents: the British colonial Union flag, flown as the territory's own ensign, with no distinct Burmese national symbol under direct colonial rule.

Bagan, Toungoo, and Konbaung dynasties

Who & why: King Anawrahta founds the Bagan Empire around 1044, the first major unification of the Irrawaddy basin, before Mongol invasion breaks it apart in the late 1200s. The Toungoo dynasty reunifies the region in the 1500s, building briefly one of Southeast Asia's largest empires, and the Konbaung dynasty, founded by Alaungpaya in 1752, is the last independent Burmese kingdom — ended only by three nineteenth-century Anglo-Burmese wars (1824–26, 1852, 1885) that progressively strip its territory before Britain annexes what remains in 1886.

What it represents: no flag survives from Bagan or Toungoo; the golden peacock, the Konbaung dynasty's own royal emblem from the eighteenth century onward, is shown here representing the whole pre-colonial span as an informed reconstruction, not a documented banner from Bagan's own era.

Pyu City-States (Irrawaddy Valley)

Who & why: Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu peoples move south into the Irrawaddy valley by around the 2nd century BCE, building a network of walled, moated brick city-states — Sri Ksetra, Beikthano, and Halin foremost among them, now jointly inscribed as the Pyu Ancient Cities UNESCO World Heritage Site — that never unify under one crown but together form Myanmar's first well-documented urban civilization. Trade contact with India brings Buddhism and a Brahmi-derived Pyu script; the network flourishes as a link on overland and riverine routes between India and China for roughly a thousand years, until the Yunnan-based Nanzhao kingdom's campaigns of 832–835 CE sack Pyu cities and scatter their population, fatally weakening the network in the same span that incoming Bamar (Burman) migrants settle the region and, within two centuries, found the unified kingdom at Bagan.

What it represents: no flag or banner of any kind survives from the Pyu era; shown here honestly blank. Pyu material culture instead survives as monumental brick stupas, burial urns, and Pyu-script inscriptions at Sri Ksetra, Beikthano, and Halin.

World context: this millennium runs alongside the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire it becomes, the Han dynasty's rise and fall in China, India's Gupta Empire (4th–6th c. CE) whose trade and Buddhist missionary contacts helped shape Pyu religion and script, and the construction of Java's Borobudur temple in the early 9th century CE — roughly contemporary with the Nanzhao campaigns that break the Pyu network apart.