Page 22 - Blog 2015 - Korea in Canada

KoREa In Canada
KoREa-Canada Blog 2015

HiSTorY
To begin with, it is known that Korea used a national
flag for the first time in 1882 at a signing ceremony for the
United States - Korea Treaty of 1882 (조미수호통상조약).
There are no official records in the present, but there are 2
references that help us identify how our very first flag
Korean imperial flag that was looked like.
depicted in the
Flags of Maritime Nations 1882
The former Korean imperial flag is depicted in the book
written by the U.S. navy department called, Flags of
Maritime nations 1882. The former flag that was depicted
in the book was the Flag of Korean Empire, which had a
different taegeuk from that in the current South Korean
flag. We can also notice that the depiction in the book is
left-right reversed from the current flag, and the
arrangement of the trigrams was not officially fixed until
the South Korean government was established in 1948.

Secondly, the flag that Young Hyo Park(박영효) used
when he went to Japan after he received an order from
Emperor gojong is used as a reference as well. There is a
record that says he drew 4 trigrams with a taegeuk in the
rd
Taegeuki by YoungHyo Park center and has notified Joseon on october 3 , 1882.

Shortly after on March 6 1883, gojong promulgated
th
Taegeuki as Joseon’s national flag. It is known that the
Taegeuki was made after it was modified from Taegeuk
Eight Trigrams (태극팔괘도) which was a personal standard
of the King of the Joseon dynasty.

The flag of the
king of the Joseon Dynasty

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