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.
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