plot_PLA: Plot the flag of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) or its...

In ggChinaFlag: Drawing Chinese National and Historical Flags with 'ggplot2'

Plot the flag of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) or its service branches

Description

This function programmatically renders the flag of the People's Liberation Army of China, as well as the flags of its various service branches and branches, using analytic geometry and ggplot2-based vector graphics. The symbols are constructed entirely from geometric primitives (rectangles, polygons, and stars), without relying on any external image files.

Usage

plot_PLA(subtype = "general", label = TRUE)

Arguments

subtype	Character string specifying the service branch or flag type. Accepts English names (e.g., "PLA Navy") or abbreviations (e.g., "Navy"). Use "general" (default) for the general PLA flag.
label	Logical value indicating whether to display textual annotations (title and axis labels). Default is TRUE.

Details

The function supports both the general PLA flag and a range of service branch flags. The desired flag is selected via the subtype argument, which accepts English names or abbreviations. The matching is performed through a cleaned search table with fuzzy matching to tolerate common prefixes such as "PLA" or "People's Liberation Army".

The geometric construction of the general PLA flag follows the design published by the People's Revolutionary Military Commission on 15 June 1949. The flag has a red background with a golden five-pointed star and the characters "8-1" in the upper left corner. Service branch flags retain the upper 5/8 of the general flag and replace the lower 3/8 with branch-specific colors and patterns.

Supported subtype values include:

• "general" – general PLA flag

• "PLA Ground Force" / "Groud" – Army

• "PLA Navy" / "Navy" – Navy

• "PLA Air Force" / "Air" – Air Force

• "PLA Rocket Force" / "Rocket" – Rocket Force

• "PLA Aerospace Force" / "Aerospace" – Aerospace Force

• "PLA Cyberspace Force" / "Cyber" – Cyberspace Force

• "PLA Information Support Force" / "Information" – Information Support Force

• "PLA Joint Logistics Support Force" / "Support" – Joint Logistics Support Force

• "People's Armed Police Force" / "CAPF" – China Armed Police Force flag (2018-)

Value

A ggplot object representing the requested PLA flag.

Author(s)

Per the regulations on the flag and emblem of the People's Liberation Army.

References

People's Revolutionary Military Commission. Order on the Flag and Emblem of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. People's Daily, 1949-06-15(1).

See Also

plot_CCP for the CCP emblem/flag plotting interface, plot_CYLC for the CYLC flag plotting interface.

Examples

plot_PLA()                          # general PLA flag
plot_PLA("Navy")                    # PLA Navy flag
plot_PLA("PLA Air Force")           # PLA Air Force flag
plot_PLA("Rocket")                  # PLA Rocket Force flag
plot_PLA(subtype = "Support", label = FALSE)

ggChinaFlag documentation built on Oct. 1, 2026, 5:11 p.m.