Flags of North Korea

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)

Who & why: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is proclaimed on 9 September 1948 in the Soviet-occupied north, with Kim Il Sung as its founding leader, formalizing the division that followed Japan's 1945 defeat and setting up the hereditary leadership that has continued through his son and grandson since. North Korea invades the south in June 1950, starting the Korean War; Chinese forces intervene on the North's side after UN forces push toward the Chinese border, and the 1953 armistice (never replaced by a formal peace treaty) leaves the peninsula divided near the original 38th parallel. North Korea has remained a single-party state under Kim family leadership continuously since 1948.

What it represents: adopted in 1948, deliberately replacing the traditional Taegukgi with a new design: a red star on white disc for Communism, centered on a broad red band (revolutionary spirit) edged in white (purity) between two blue bands (sovereignty and peace).

Soviet occupation and provisional government (north of the 38th parallel)

Who & why: Japan's August 1945 surrender ends its colonial rule over Korea; the Soviet Union and the United States divide the peninsula for occupation purposes along the 38th parallel, with Soviet forces administering the north and backing Kim Il Sung's rise through a Soviet-installed provisional government. Efforts at a unified Korean trusteeship collapse amid Cold War tension, and the northern administration oversees the transition to the separate Democratic People's Republic, proclaimed in September 1948.

What it represents: the traditional Taegukgi remains in general use in the north through most of this transitional period, before the new state replaces it with a distinct red-star design at its 1948 founding.

Japanese colonial rule (Korea under Japan)

Who & why: after decades of growing Japanese influence following the 1876 opening of Korea and the 1905 protectorate treaty, Japan formally annexes Korea in August 1910, ending the Korean Empire's independence. Thirty-five years of colonial rule follow, including forced labor and cultural assimilation policy in the war years, stated here factually and without gratuitous detail; a major nonviolent independence movement, the March First Movement of 1919, is met with harsh suppression but leads to a Korean Provisional Government in exile. Colonial rule ends with Japan's surrender in August 1945.

What it represents: Japan's own Hinomaru (see this atlas's Japan page), flown as the flag of the colonizing power; the Taegukgi is banned from official use throughout this period but persists as an underground symbol of Korean national identity, including among the Provisional Government in exile.

Korean Empire

Who & why: King Gojong proclaims the Korean Empire in October 1897, elevating Joseon's status to formally match its neighbors' imperial titles and asserting full independence after centuries of a tributary relationship with China. The Korean Empire pursues cautious modernization reforms but cannot resist mounting Japanese pressure, becoming a protectorate in 1905 and being formally annexed in 1910.

What it represents: the same Taegukgi already adopted in 1883, now flown as the flag of a formally sovereign empire rather than a tributary kingdom.

Joseon Dynasty (Taegukgi adopted)

Who & why: as Joseon opens to Western and Japanese trade through the 1870s–80s, its diplomats need a national flag for the first time to conduct treaty relations under then-standard international practice; envoy Park Yeong-hyo is generally credited with formalizing the design, officially adopted in 1883, drawing on an older Joseon royal taegeuk emblem. Joseon at this point remains a nominal tributary of Qing China even as it modernizes, a relationship it formally ends with the 1897 proclamation of the Korean Empire.

What it represents: the taegeuk (yin-yang) circle representing cosmic balance and harmony, a symbol with a much older history in Korean art and philosophy, formalized here for the first time as a national flag.

Joseon Dynasty (pre-flag era)

Who & why: General Yi Seong-gye founds the Joseon Dynasty in 1392, ruling Korea for over five centuries — one of the longest-lived dynasties anywhere in East Asia. Joseon adopts Confucianism as state ideology, creates the Hangul writing system under King Sejong in the 1440s, and survives major Japanese (1592–98) and Manchu (1636–37) invasions, while maintaining a tributary relationship with Ming and then Qing China throughout most of this span.

What it represents: no national flag is adopted until near the very end of this period (1883); royal authority instead uses Confucian court ritual, official seals, and Joseon's own associated color symbolism. Shown here with a dynastic blue reference rather than an invented banner.

Goryeo Dynasty

Who & why: Wang Geon founds Goryeo in 918 and completes the reunification of the Korean peninsula by 936, absorbing the last remnants of the fractured post-Silla period; the dynasty's own name is the direct source of the modern English word "Korea." Goryeo survives repeated Khitan invasions and, from the 1230s, devastating Mongol invasions that eventually force it into subordinate status within the Mongol Empire's sphere for roughly a century, before it is overthrown by its own general, Yi Seong-gye, founding Joseon in 1392.

What it represents: no state flag is documented in this period; Goryeo court and Buddhist symbolism (the dynasty is closely associated with state-sponsored Buddhism, including production of the Tripitaka Koreana) substitute for any flag.

Unified Silla

Who & why: Silla, allied with Tang China, defeats its rival kingdoms Baekje (660) and Goguryeo (668) and then expels its own former Tang allies, achieving the first political unification of most of the Korean peninsula by 676. Unified Silla presides over a golden age of Buddhist art and culture centered on its capital Gyeongju before weakening in its final decades, fragmenting into the brief Later Three Kingdoms period that Goryeo's founder reunifies by 936.

What it represents: no flag is documented for Silla; Buddhist iconography and royal Silla court symbolism take its place in the historical record.

Three Kingdoms of Korea (Goguryeo, Baekje, Silla)

Who & why: traditional founding dates place Goguryeo (in the north, extending into Manchuria — the kingdom North Korea's own state historiography most closely identifies with), Baekje (southwest), and Silla (southeast) all emerging around the turn of the millennium, though reliable historical attestation for each strengthens over the following centuries; this page uses one honest bridging entry for this genuinely contested, multi-centered span rather than inventing false precision. The three kingdoms compete, ally, and fight one another and outside powers (including Tang China and Yamato Japan) for over seven centuries, before Silla's Tang-allied conquest of Baekje and then Goguryeo ends the period in 668, opening the way to unification.

What it represents: no flags survive from any of the three kingdoms; royal tombs, Buddhist temple art (introduced to each kingdom at different points), and court chronicles are the main surviving record of this era's own symbolism.

Gojoseon & the Han Commanderies

Who & why: Gojoseon is the earliest Korean state named in surviving records, attested in Chinese sources with growing reliability from around the 4th–3rd century BCE onward; a Yan refugee named Wiman seizes its throne around 194 BCE, founding the short-lived Wiman Joseon dynasty. Han Emperor Wu's armies conquer it in 108 BCE, and the Han court organizes the territory — centered on the Pyongyang area, squarely within modern North Korea — into four commanderies, of which Lelang persists as a Chinese administrative and trading outpost for over four centuries, well past this entry's own end date.

What it represents: no flag or comparable state banner survives or is credibly attested for Gojoseon or the Han commanderies that followed it — shown here honestly blank, consistent with this atlas's treatment of other genuinely undocumented ancient states.

World context: Gojoseon's fall and the Han commanderies' founding fall squarely within the Han dynasty's own expansionist peak under Emperor Wu, who also pushes the Silk Road west into Central Asia and garrisons the Great Wall's frontier; further west, this same span covers the last decades of the Roman Republic, Julius Caesar's assassination (44 BCE), and Augustus's founding of the Roman Empire (27 BCE) — a reminder that Korea's earliest recorded state falls just as two of the ancient world's other great empires are being built or remade.