Flag of the People's Liberation Army

Design

The flag has a ratio of 5 by 4, which has a white sleeve measuring 1⁄16 of the flag's length. For ceremonies, a PLA flag with golden fringe is placed on a pole with gold and red spiral stripes and topped with a golden finial and red tassel. Each branch of the PLA, the Ground Forces, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, also have their own individual flags. In a 1992 order, the flags of the three branches were defined: the top 5⁄8 of the flags is the same as the PLA flag; the bottom 3⁄8 are occupied by the colors of the branches. The flag of the Ground Forces has a forest green bar at the bottom, the naval ensign has stripes of blue and white at the bottom, the Air Force uses a sky blue bar at the bottom, the Rocket Force uses a yellow bar at the bottom. The forest green represents the earth, the blue and white stripes represent the seas, the sky blue represents the air, the yellow represents the flare of missile launching.

On 10 January 2018, the People's Armed Police received a new flag following the design of the branch flags with three olive stripes at the bottom. The three olive stripes represents the People's Armed Police responsible for the three main tasks and force composition of maintaining national political security and social stability, maritime rights protection and law enforcement, and defense operations.