The Korean Flag - Tae kook

South Korea is a country in eastern Asia. South Korea's flag pictures a red and blue Yin-Yang symbol, red (yang) on top, blue (yin) on the bottom, in the center of a white field. Four groups of three long and short black bars (called kwae) surround the central circle. The flag is called Tae Kook (which means "Great Extremes").

The white in this philosophical flag represents peace and purity. Symbolically, the Yin-Yang symbol represents opposites; it is the belief that all things in the universe have two, opposite aspects that cannot exist without the other.

The kwae trigrams are from the I Ching; the broken bars symbolize yin (dark and cold) and the unbroken bars symbolize yang (bright and hot).

The four Kwae represent: heaven (three unbroken bars), the Earth (three broken bars), water (one unbroken line between two broken bars), and fire (one broken bar between two unbroken bars).




The Kwai trigrams are placed in such a way that they balance one another, heaven is placed opposite Earth, and fire is placed opposite water.