A Brief Overview of the Korean Flag - Taegukki

The Korean national flag is called Taegukki and its meaning is very philosophical. The flag symbolizes the origin of all things in the universe, perfect harmony and balance, a continously moving sphere of infinity, resulting in one. The origin comes from the Chinese philosophy of Yin Yang. Yin means dark and cold, while Yang means bright and hot. The Chinese Book of the I Ching claims that all objects and events in the world are expressed by the movement of yin and yang.

Yin and Yang are relative and express the dualism of the universe. They are opposite and struggle each other while they cooperate in harmony.

Examples of yin and yang:

yin	yang
the moon	the sun
earth	heaven
night	day
winter	summer
woman	man

The upper half of the circle, red, of Taeguk represents yang and the lower half circle, blue, represents yin. They stand for the state of harmony of yin and yang.

The symbols, called Kwae, in the four corners (Kun, Kam, Yi, and Kon), represent the principle of movement and harmony. Each Kwae consists of three bars that can be either broken or unbroken bars. A broken bar stands for yin, an unbroken bar stands for yang.

Kun - Heaven Kam - Water Yi - Fire Kon - Earth The white background color of the flag symbolizes peace.