The Patterns for the Flag and Emblem of
the Chinese People’s Liberation Army—By
the Command of the Chinese People’s
Revolutionary Military Commission
(June 15, 1949)
(Xinhua News Agency, Beiping) The Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military
Commission today issued a command promulgating the patterns for the flag and
the emblem of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The full content of the
command is as follows:
The Command of the Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military Commission
We hereby promulgate the patterns for the flag and the emblem of the Chinese
People’s Liberation Army as follows:
I. The Military Flag
The background of the flag of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is red. The
flag has a golden yellow five-pointed star and the characters “eight one.” This
represents the long struggle that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has undergone since coming into being during the Nanchang Uprising on August 1, 1927,
and how its brilliant starlight now shines down upon the entire country.
A. The construction method
	(1)	 The face of the flag is red and rectangular. The proportion of the length to the
width is five to four. The cap of the flagpole is white. Its width should be one sixteenth of the length of the flag. The flagpole should be covered in alternating lines of red and yellow. There should be a yellow spearhead at its top.
	(2)	 The flag is divided into four rectangles by a vertical middle line passing
through the central point upward and downward on the face of the flag and a
horizontal line passing through the central point to both sides.


	(3)	 Both the five-pointed star and the characters “eight one” should be golden
yellow. They should be located in the rectangle at the top and near the
flagpole.
	(4)	 That rectangle is divided vertically into sixteen equal parts and horizontally
into twenty equal parts. At the place marked by 8:8 vertically and 4:16 horizontally, mark a point as the center of a circle, the radius of which is the
length of four subdivided parts. Draw the circle and then connect five equal
dividing points of the circle to draw a five-pointed star. The apex of the top
angle should be directly vertical to the center of the circle.
	(5)	 The “eight one” should be written in Chinese. Each stroke should form a rectangle. When the flagpole is on the left, those two characters should be on the
lower right side of the star and should be written horizontally from left to right.
When the flagpole is on the right, those two characters should be on the lower
left side of the star and should be written horizontally from right to left.
	(6)	 Each of the two strokes for “eight” is three subsections long and one subsection wide. It is placed in a small rectangle, the top line of which is seven
subsections above the horizontal line, and the bottom line of which is four
subsections above the horizontal line. The rectangle’s left side (or its right
side if the flagpole is on the right) is on the vertical line drawn downward
from the upper right (or upper left) corner of the five-point star. Its right (or
left) side is 4.5 subsections left (or right) of the center vertical line. The six
exterior right-angle points of the “eight” character should be directly connected to the corresponding sides of the small rectangle, and the two interior
right-angle points should be about 0.5 subsections apart. The “one” character
should be four subsections long and one subsection wide. Its bottom side is
five subsections above the central horizontal line, and its right (or left) side
is right on the central vertical line.
B. The lengths of each rank of the army flag are as follows:
	(1)	 People’s Liberation Army headquarters: width: 170 cm, length: 136 cm
	(2)	 Field army (and first grade military region) and corps (and second grade
military region): width: 165 cm, length: 132 cm
	(3)	 Army (and third grade military region): width: 160 cm, length: 128 cm
	(4)	 Division (and military sub-region): width: 155 cm, length: 124 cm
	(5)	 Regiment (and county headquarters or militia unit): width: 150 cm, length:
120 cm
II. The Military Emblem
The military emblem of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is a red fivepointed star bordered with gold. The characters “eight one” are inserted in the
middle.

	A.	 When the military emblem is used as decoration for a cap, the construction
method and dimensions are as follows:
	(1)	 The radius of the circle containing the five-pointed star is 15 cm (the
star is a convex of 2 mm), and each angle is 36 degrees, with a gold
border that is 1.5 mm thick.
	(2)	 The characters “eight one,” written in Song font, are located properly
inside the red star.
	B.	 When the emblem is used on an armband, certificate of merit, document,
vehicle, ship, plane, or building, it should be enlarged or shrunk in proportion to the above dimensions.
Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military Commission,
Chairman Mao Zedong
Vice-chairman Zhu De
Liu Shaoqi
Zhou Enlai
Peng Dehuai