The national flag of South Korea is called 태극기 (tae-geuk-gi ; Hanja: 太極旗), where 태극 "the Great Absolute" is the red and blue symbol in the middle and 기 means "flag".
Source: wikipedia
The flag was designed in 1882 and became the official flag of the Republic of Korea in 1948. It has three parts:
- a white background, which symbolises clarity, purity, and the peace-loving character of the Korean people
- a red and blue lobed 태극 in the centre
The upper red lobe stands for yang (양 ) and the bottom blue lobe stands for yin (음). The yin-yang symbolises the balance and harmony in nature of opposite forces and elements. - four black trigrams, one in each corner of the flag
These trigrams are from the Eight Trigrams (Chinese: 八卦) of Chinese origins:
건 (Hanja: 乾) - heaven, spring, east and humanity
지 (Hanja: 地) - earth, summer, west and righteousness
일 (Hanja: 日) - sun, autumn, south and courtesy
감 (Hanja: 坎) - moon, winter, north and intelligence
The flag as a whole symbolises the ideal of Korean people developing forever in harmony with the universe.
In Chinese, 태극기 is 太极旗, which is very close to Korean Hanja 太極旗. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since Hanja means Chinese characters, just like Kanji in Japanese. However, what I never realised until I started learning Korean is how similar Korean Hanja is to Chinese, even more so than Japanese Kanji.
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