Full Name: People’s Republic of China
Capital: Beijing
Phone code: +86
TLD: .cn
Region: Asia

On 4 July 1949, the sixth working group of the Preparatory Committee of the New Political Consultative Conference (PCNPCC) created a notice to submit designs for the national flag. After a few changes, the notice was published in the papers People’s Daily, Beiping Liberation News, Xinmin News, Dazhong Daily, Guangming Daily, Jinbu Daily and Tianjin Daily during a period between 15-26 July. The list requirements for the national flag were also posted in the notice:

Chinese characteristics (Geography, nationality, history, culture, etc.)
Power characteristics (A people’s democratic government, led by the working class and based on the worker-peasant alliance.)
The shape should be rectangular and the length-breadth ratio should be 3:2
The colour should mainly be bright red (an early draft of the notice had the colour at dark red, but was changed to bright red by Zhou Enlai).

National Flag of All Countries: Details And Meaning

The “Yellow River” flag design originally preferred by Mao Zedong

Zeng Liansong, a citizen from Wenzhou, Zhejiang, was working in Shanghai at the time the announcement came out; he wanted to create a flag design to express his patriotic enthusiasm for the new country. In the middle of July, he sat down in his attic for multiple nights to come up with designs. His inspiration for the current design comes from the stars shining in the night sky. He thought of a Chinese proverb “longing for the stars, longing for the moon”,  which shows yearning. He viewed the CPC as the great saviour “great saving star”) of the Chinese people, being represented by a larger star.

The idea for four small stars came from On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship a speech by Mao Zedong, which defined the Chinese people as consisting of four social classes, also referred to in Asian cultures as the four occupations  shi, nong, gong, shang (“the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie”). Yellow also implies that China belongs to the Chinese people, a “yellow race”. After working out the details of the placement of the stars and their sizes (he had tried to put all of the stars in the center, but believed it would be too heavy and dull), he sent his “Five Stars on a Field of Red”  design to the committee in the middle of August.