The Taichung flag has been redesigned, Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) announced today, marking the end of the 80-year-old design that has been derided as the ugliest flag in the country.
The new flag says Taichung in both English and traditional Chinese characters, featuring a stylized representation of the city’s Mid-Lake Pavilion (湖心亭) on a white background.
Government offices currently displaying the old flag would change to the new one starting today, Taichung Civil Affairs Bureau Director-General Wu Shih-wei (吳世瑋) said.
Photo courtesy of the Taichung City Government
The old flag, which only has the characters for “Taichung City” in red on a yellow background, was once voted the ugliest flag in the country in an online poll.
Former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) held a campaign to change the design, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
Taichung has both a city flag and a government flag, Lu said.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
While the government flag has used the pavilion as a familiar symbol of the city, the red-and-yellow city flag has drawn “some criticism,” she said.
After discussions, the city government decided to merge the city flag and government flag into one, with minimal changes, Lu said.
This new unified design would serve as the symbol for Taichung, she added.
The red-and-yellow flag has been in use since 1945, when Taichung was reorganized into a provincial-level city, although the origins of the design are unclear.
Aside from use by government agencies, it is also flown by Taichung delegations at large-scale competitions such as the Taiwan National Games.
The flag is to make its first public appearance tonight at a signing ceremony for a sister-city agreement between Taichung and Hoboken, New Jersey, Wu said.
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
RSS