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From the mid-19th century until 1916, the South East Asian nation of Thailand, then called Siam, used a red flag charged with a white elephant.
The elephant flag was replaced in 1916 with a red-white-red-white-red horizontal striped flag.
This flag was modified to the current design on the 28th of September 1917, when the middle red stripe was replaced with blue.
Blue is associated with Thai royalty, but its inclusion essentially was to honour Thailand’s World War I allies, Great Britain, France, United States and Russia, who all had red, white and blue flags.
The addition of a third colour also provided the flag its name, Triaranga or Triarong, which literally means tricolour.
In 1932, the absolute Thai monarchy was overthrown in a bloodless coup and replaced by a constitutional monarchy.
In 1939, the ruling government changed the country’s name from Siam to Thailand, after the ethnic majority of the nation, the Thai people. |
