Flag of Vietnam color yellow
Historical flags
Traditional images show the Trung sisters wearing yellow turbans during their revolt against North (China) in AD 40. These were unwrapped and waved to signal the beginning of a fight. A yellow banner with a red circle in the center was adopted as a standard by Emperor Gia Long (r. 1802–1820). The French, who gradually gained control of Vietnam in the late 19th century, flew the national flag of France. The colony of Cochinchina (1862–1945) was under exclusive French authority. In contrast, Annam and Tonkin were protectorates with parallel systems of Vietnamese and French administration. Several flags were flown in these regions: the French flag, the protectorate flag, and Long tinh flag.
Japan occupied Vietnam in 1941–1945. In March 1945, the Japanese deposed the French colonial authorities and proclaimed an Empire of Vietnam with Bảo Đại as emperor. The Quẻ Ly flag, a red quẻ Ly (one of eight trigrams used in the I Ching) on a yellow background, was adopted in June. Among other things, quẻ Ly ☲ symbolizes the direction south. Bảo Đại abdicated in August when Japan surrendered. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam, proclaimed on 2 September 1945, adopted the red flag with a golden star. The French returned in 23rd of the same month, but were challenged by the Vietminh, especially in the North. The French proclaimed Cochinchina an autonomous republic in June 1946. This puppet state adopted a flag with three blue stripes on a yellow background.
In 1947, the name of the Cochinchina government was changed to "Provisional Government of Southern Vietnam" in preparation for a merger with the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam outlined in the Hạ Long Bay agreements between France and Bảo Đại. The flag of the State of Vietnam was adopted by Emperor Bảo Đại in 1948. The three stripes represented the Quẻ Càn, or Qian trigram. Quẻ Càn is the divination sign for heaven. On 2 June 1948, Prime Minister of the Provisional Central Government Nguyễn Văn Xuân, signed an ordinance to adopt this flag: "The national emblem is a flag of yellow background, the height of which is equal to two-thirds of its width. In the middle of the flag and along its entire width, there are three horizontal red bands. Each band has a height equal to one-fifteenth of the width. These three red bands are separated from one another by a space of the band's height." The flag of the State of Vietnam was later also used by its successor the Republic of Vietnam, commonly known as South Vietnam.
On 8 June 1969, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Viet Cong) adopted a tricolor flag modelled from that of North Vietnam, which is the red half at the top, the blue half at the bottom, and a yellow star in the center. This replaced the yellow flag after the fall of Saigon, and was used until the reunification with North Vietnam on 2 July 1976.
On the other hand, in January 2017, San Jose, which has the largest population of Vietnamese emigrants from what was formerly South Vietnam in the United States, banned the Vietnamese flag from being displayed on city flagpoles. This was motivated by a 2016 policy adopted by Westminster, California forbidding the display of the flag on city property. Nearby Milpitas also banned the flag from municipal display on 5 September 2017.
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