Proportion 2:3 | Adopted 9 October 1970 | |
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Design Blue field with a red canton; in the canton a white representation of Angkor Wat, in the upper fly corner three white stars | ||
The flag of the Khmer Republic is one of the historical flags of the Kingdom of Cambodia.
It consists of a blue field with a red rectangle in the canton. The red rectangle bears the Angkor Wat silhouette. Three large white stars are aligned horizontally on the upper corner of the blue field.
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History
The flag of the Khmer Republic was introduced on 9 October 1970 by the Lon Nol regime replacing the Royal Flag. It was the official flag of Cambodia for almost five years and it was displayed at the 1972 Summer Olympics where Cambodia officially competed under its new government after a long absence.
The last place where it was hoisted as official flag of the state was in May 1975 in the final area held by the Khmer National Armed Forces forces on the escarpment of the Preah Vihear Temple in the Dângrêk Mountains. Even though their government had surrendered, loyalist Khmer Republic soldiers continued to fiercely hold their ground for nearly a month after the fall of Phnom Penh. Finally that outpost fell to the Khmer Rouge on 22 May 1975. The flag of Democratic Kampuchea became the flag of Cambodia after the ousting of the republican government.
Later use
The Khmer Republic flag is still used afterwards by Cambodian opposition groups in exile, such as the Khmer People Power Movement (KPPM), and by certain political parties within Cambodia, such as the KRP, though on a smaller scale if compared to the South Vietnamese flag. Khmer scholar Keng Vannsak commented that, according to Cambodian superstition, the choice of three stars was inauspicious.
Pattern
The flag of the Khmer Republic kept the white three-towered Angkor Wat silhouette, as well as the blue and red colors of the royal flag that had preceded it, but in a different pattern.
Stars
According to Article 4 of the Constitutional Law of the Khmer Republic voted by the National Assembly on 7 October 1970, the three stars in the blue field represent the following: