History & Architecture of Hue’s Flag Tower

The Flag Tower of Hue was built in November 1807 by the request of Gia Long king, the first emperor of the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945). It’s part of Nam Chanh bastion (‘main south’ bastion) that belongs to the Hue Citadel.

On the central axis of the Hue Imperial City, the Flag Tower is the third building from outside, after two pavilions – Nghenh Luong Dinh and Phu Van Lau or the Pavillion of Edicts. Behind it, there is Ngo Mon Square where important events of the dynasty take place, and Ngo Mon Gate or the Meridian Gate, main entrance of the complex of Imperial City and the Forbidden Purple City. On the other side, on the same wall, it lies between two gate-watchtowers: The Nhan Gate or , and Quang Duc Gate or ‘collapsed’ gate.

About the architecture, the Flag Tower of Hue composes a 3-tiers base and a pole.

The pole of Hue’s Flag Tower is 37 meters tall today. In the beginning, it’s made of wood and had a height of 30 meters. In 1846, in the reign of Thieu Tri king (the 3rd Nguyen emperor), it’s replaced by a 32-meters-tall tree. In 1904, in the reign of the Thanh Thai king, this tree collapsed due to a terrific typhoon, and was replaced by a cast iron pipe. In 1947, French colonists attacked Hue and shot it to fall. In the next year, this pole was re-built by ferrocement and has standed until now.

During the Nguyen dynasty, a big yellow flag was hung up at the Flag Tower of Hue. Yellow color symbolizes the royalty, supreme power of the emperor, and centre of heaven and earth. On special occasions, such as New year festival, king’s birthday, king’s longevity celebration ceremony, it would be replaced by a yellow flag with a dragon in the middle. The dragon also symbolizes the emperor, and is one of 4 holy animals in Vietnamese culture. Within the year in which many natural disasters occur, ‘flag with a dragon’ would not be used.

In 1885, French colonists captured the Hue Citadel, and the imperial flag was replaced by the flag of France (which has three colors blue, white, and red). On 12nd June 1945, Bao Dai king approved the new national flag. This flag has a yellow background with a red ‘Clinging Radiance’, a trigram in the Eight Trigrams (Bagua) which symbolizes the south direction or fire or independence. Since 30th August 1945, when he was abdicated, it’s replaced by the flag of Vietnam. Current flag is the red flag with a golden star in the middle. Red color symbolizes the bloodshed of Vietnamese people. The star is yellow, symbolizing the skin color of Vietnamese people, the communist party, and has 5 points, symbolizing five classes in Vietnam society (farmer, intellectual, solder, worker, and entrepreneur).