🇹🇭

Flag of Thailand

Asia

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Quick Facts

Capital
Bangkok
Flag adopted
1917
Population
65,859,640
Area
513,120 km²
Languages
Thai
Currency
Thai baht (฿) — THB
Demonym
Thai
Government
constitutional monarchy
Subregion
South-Eastern Asia
Driving side
Left
Timezones
UTC+07:00

Religions

  • Buddhist 92.5%
  • Muslim 5.4%
  • Christian 1.2%
  • Other 0.9%

About This Flag

The flag of Thailand, called Trairanga (meaning 'tricolor'), consists of five horizontal stripes in a symmetrical pattern: red-white-blue-white-red, with the central blue stripe being twice the height of each of the other stripes. The red represents the nation and the blood of the Thai people, the white symbolizes the purity of Buddhism (the state religion), and the blue stands for the monarchy — blue was the birth-day color of King Vajiravudh (Rama VI), who introduced the flag.

This design replaced an earlier plain red flag with a white elephant and was adopted on September 28, 1917, during World War I, partly so Thailand's flag would share the red-white-blue color scheme of the Allied powers.

What the colors & design mean

Red represents the nation and the Thai people. White symbolizes Buddhism, the predominant religion. Blue represents the monarchy, the institution at the heart of Thai national identity. Together these three colors embody the national motto: Nation, Religion, King.

red white blue

Pattern: Horizontal Stripes

Bordering countries (4)

🇲🇲 Myanmar 🇰🇭 Cambodia 🇱🇦 Laos 🇲🇾 Malaysia

Fun Facts

  • Thailand's flag was changed from a white elephant on red to the current tricolor partly because King Rama VI saw the elephant flag hung upside down during a flood and decided a symmetrical design would prevent such embarrassment.
  • The blue stripe was originally added in 1917 to align Thailand's flag colors with those of its World War I allies (France, Britain, Russia, and the United States), all of which had red, white, and blue flags.
  • Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country that was never colonized by a European power, a fact that is a source of immense national pride.
  • The white elephant was the traditional royal symbol of Siam (Thailand's former name), and a rare white elephant was considered so valuable that the Thai expression for a ruinous gift — a 'white elephant' — entered the English language.

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