The flag of North Macedonia is the national flag of the Republic of North Macedonia and depicts a stylized yellow sun on a red field, with eight broadening rays extending from the center to the edge of the field. It was created by Miroslav Grčev and was adopted on 5 October 1995. The eight-rayed sun represents the "new sun of Liberty" referred to in "Denes nad Makedonija" ("Today over Macedonia"), the national anthem of North Macedonia. The first post-Yugoslav flag of the country, adopted in 1992, known as the Kutlesh Flag, featured the Vergina Sun, a symbol that had been discovered at Aigai, the first capital and burial ground of the ancient kings of Macedon. Greece considers the Vergina Sun to be a Greek symbol and imposed a year-long economic embargo in order to persuade the then Republic of Macedonia to remove it from its flag, resulting in the current design. History Flag of the Independent Macedonia (1944) In 1944, the Independent Macedonia, a short-lived puppet state of Nazi Germany, used the flag of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, which was divided horizontally into two stripes of equal height that were: red and black. Flag of People's Republic of Macedonia (1944–1946) The modern Macedonian state was proclaimed underground on 2 August 1944 by the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM), the state's supreme legislative and executive body until 1946. The state was originally known as Democratic Federal Macedonia and was renamed the People's Republic of Macedonia in 1945. The ASNOM became operational in December, shortly after the German retreat. The flag was adopted during ASNOM's second plenary session in December. The first version of the flag depicted a gold-edged five-pointed red star centred on a red field. Flag of Socialist Republic of Macedonia (1946–1992) Between December 1946 and September 1991, the Socialist Republic of Macedonia (known as the People's Republic of Macedonia until 1963) was one of the six constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was the only Yugoslav republic not to use the Pan-Slavic colours on its flag. Macedonia instead adopted an amended version of its previous flag, depicting a gold-edged five-pointed red star in the canton against a red field in a design similar to the flags of the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. This flag was adopted on 31 December 1946 under Article 4 of the Constitution