![[Flag of Macao Special Region, 1999]](../images/m/mo.gif)
image by Ivan Sarajcic, 26 April 2006
Last modified: 2022-11-12 by ian macdonald
Keywords: macau | china | portugal | lotus | star |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
image by Ivan Sarajcic, 26 April 2006
Macao: Index of Pages:
See also:
Macao adopted the flag prior to re-integration into China on 20 December 1999.
The flag is light green with a white lotus above a stylized bridge and water
and beneath an arc of five stars: one large and four smaller as on the flag of
China. Source: Flagmaster no. 80. Note that the
colour of the stars isn't mentioned.
Mark Sensen, 27 December 1995
On March 8, 1998, the Xinhua news agency (China) ran a feature on the
designer of the Macao flag. The flag selected to represent Macao after
its re-integration into China was designed by Xiao Hong, a professor of arts
and crafts at the Henan University. Xiao's entry was just one of over
1,000 considered for the new design. Xiao designed the flag after
reading a 600-word tourist guide on Macao. The design was further
improved before being approved in 1993. It was not until three years
after the flag was adopted that he first visited Macao. A deputy in the
Henan 163-member delegation to the ninth National People's Congress (NPC), he
became one of the more popular members when the lawmakers learned of his role
designing the flag.
Jan Oskar Engene, 09 March 1998
The protocol manual for the
London 2012 Olympics (Flags and Anthems Manual
London 2012 [loc12]) provides recommendations
for national flag designs. Each
NOC was sent an image of the flag,
including the PMS shades, for their approval by LOCOG. Once this was obtained, LOCOG produced
a 60 x 90 cm version of the flag for further approval. So, while these specs may
not be the official, government, version of each flag, they are certainly what
the NOC believed the flag to be.
For Macao: PMS 342 green, 109 yellow. The vertical flag is simply the horizontal
version turned 90 degrees clockwise.
Ian Sumner, 10 October 2012
The Portuguese flags where lowered on November
19 in Macao, replaced by Chinese ones. The ceremonies where not very long, but
they where very symmetrical.
It all happened in a pavilion specially built for the occasion. Inside
there was a vast stage with a tribune in the background and two speaker's
platforms and 4 flag poles in the foreground. It was a very symmetrical
ceremony: in the viewer's right it was the "Portuguese sector" with
everything (and everybody) Portuguese in it, and in the left the "Chinese
sector" with the vice-versa.
Behind the tribune there was a wall where were hanging two big national
flags: Portugal in the viewer's right, China in the viewer's left. The
speaker's platforms where also identified by national symbols, this time the
coat of arms. In the case of the Portuguese coat of arms, is was the minor
arms (therefore without laurel and scroll) on a green background, which is
unusual.
The poles where sophisticated: despite the ceremony being held indoors, the
flags flew through a system that blows air through the interior of the pole.
Interesting that the flags only begin flying when they reach the very top of
the pole, just hanging sadly in the rest of the "travel" along the
pole.
The poles where, as I said, 4: two in the viewer's left and two in the
viewer's right. The two poles closer to the center where higher than those at
the sides. The difference was about one meter or something similar. Those
where the poles where the national flags flew Those at the sides where used to
fly the "municipal" flag of Macao under
Portuguese administration, that is, the flag of the Leal Senado and
the flag of the Special Autonomous Region.
In the beginning only the Portuguese flags flew. And the ceremony begun.
First, entered 3 members of the military forces of each country, the
Portuguese empty-handed and the Chinese carrying the Chinese national flag,
immediately followed by 3 members of the security forces (i.e., police) of
each country, again the Portuguese empty-handed and the Chinese carrying the
flag of the SAR. Later on, when local midnight approached, the Portuguese flag
and the flag of the city of Macao where lowered simultaneously under the
sounds of the Portuguese national anthem. After midnight, the Chinese flag and
the new flag of Macao where hoisted also simultaneously and also under the
sounds of the Chinese anthem. Only after that, the Portuguese flags where
folded and carried away by the military and security people in a mirror image
of what happened previously when the Chinese flags arrived.
Jorge Candeias, 19 November 1999
