Flag of Myanmar

The State Flag of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar is a horizontal rectangular tricolor flag of saffron, green, and red with a large white five-pointed star in the center. The current flag was adopted on 21 October 2010.

The State Flag described in the 2008 Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar was adopted by enacting the 2010 Union Flag Law and the abolishment of the 1974 State Flag Law on 21 October 2010. It was hoisted for the first time at 3:00 p.m. local time on 21 October 2010. Orders were also handed out to ensure all old national flags were burned.

Unlike the previous 1974 State Flag Law, the 2010 Union Flag Law includes the definition of the flag. The current flag is a horizontal tricolour flag of saffron, green, and red charged with a five-pointed white star in the centre of the field. The background is a saffron, green, and red tricolor, meant to honour the tricolours used during the independence struggle. The saffron represents unity, conformity, wisdom, happiness, and unity of all national races amicably. The green symbolises fertility, conformity, fairness, and being a peaceful, pleasant, and green nation. The red represents bravery and decisiveness. The white star stands for purity, honesty, fullness of compassion, and power.

The two flags used by the country immediately before the 2010 flag both originated in the Burmese Resistance, which adopted a red flag with a white star when fighting the occupying Japanese forces during World War II.

The National Flag of the Union of Burma was designed by Maung Win and adopted by the Constituent Assembly of the Union of Burma in August 1947. It was hoisted for the first time at 4:25 AM on 4 January 1948 when Burma gained its independence from the United Kingdom. The flag consisted of a red field defaced with a blue canton. The blue canton was charged with one large white star surrounded by five smaller stars between its rays. The big white star in the canton and the red field honour the Resistance Flag and indicate the anti-fascist struggle. The five small white stars between the rays of the big white star symbolize the unity of various ethnicities of the republican union founded as a result of the resistance. The red represents courage, determination and unity. The blue canton means the nature of the sky, having deep meanings, the fresh and clear mind, and the light emitted in the night sky. The usage of stars is for the nature of the stars: never stopping, never cancelling the chosen path, always moving forward, being a guide for travellers, and existing since the beginning of the world indicating that Burma is with its rightful glory as an independent republic on the earth, while the colour white represents purity, righteousness and steadfastness. This flag has a ratio of 5:9 in which the canton has a ratio of 21⁄2:4. On 3 January 1974, it was replaced by the State Flag of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma.

The State Flag designed by Mya Thaung and adopted on 3 January 1974 upon the coming into force of the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma has a similar ratio and background colours as the previous flag but with different charge in the canton. The colour representations are also different: white is for purity and virtue, red for bravery and decisiveness, blue for peacefulness and steadfastness or integrity. It depicts 14 white stars of equal size encircling a pinion with 14 cogs and ear of paddy with 34 grains superimposed on it (each star on each tooth of the pinion) in a blue canton against a red field. The paddy represents peasants while the pinion represents workers; the combination symbolizes the peasants and workers as the fundamental social classes of building the socialist system. The 14 white stars of equal size represent the equality and unity of the 14 members (7 states and 7 divisions) of the Union.

After the 1988 coup, the new juntas, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and its successor the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), continued to use this flag as the State Flag of the Union of Myanmar. But they removed the reference to socialism by replacing "the socialist system" with "the State" in the school lesson about the State Flag; peasants and workers became the fundamental social classes of building the State.

The 14-star flag was hung upside down during the 8888 Uprising of 1988 by demonstrators as a sign of protest against the military government. Despite its association with the periods of military rule, the 1974 flag is used by demonstrators in the 2021 Myanmar protests, alongside the 1948 flag.