Flags of Asia

There is something about a flag moving in the wind that catches me immediately.

Since I was young I have had a strange fixation with flags. I notice them when I travel. A flag hanging above a market, painted on a shop door, stitched to a uniform or flying from an absurdly high pole can stop me for a few seconds. I often photograph it, or film it, without even thinking.

Maybe that is why flags ended up with their own place on this travel blog. For me a flag is part of travelling through a country — not a design in a book. You see it above government buildings, at borders, in villages, on mountains — and sometimes in places where the political meaning of that flag has changed completely since your previous visit.

On this page I collect the 49 national flags of Asia with their colors and meanings, together with some of the flags I have photographed myself across the continent. Some of them no longer look the way they did when this page was first published in 2019 — three of them have changed. Those get their own chapter below.

Asia National Flags

In alphabetical order. Under the flags I know personally, you will find where I saw them.

Flag of Afghanistan

2 colors: white, black.

Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, the flag used by Afghanistan’s de facto authorities is a plain white field carrying the shahada — the Islamic declaration of faith — in black. White is presented as a symbol of purity and of the movement itself. The black-red-green tricolour with the white state emblem, described on this page for years, was the flag of the former Islamic Republic (2004–2021); it is still used by parts of the diaspora and opposition. I drove across northern Afghanistan in 2012 under the tricolour — that story is here — and returned to see the white flag with my own eyes.

Flag of Armenia

3 colors: red, blue, orange.

Three horizontal stripes. Per Armenia’s own constitutional definition, red stands for the Armenian Highland and the people’s continued struggle for survival, Christian faith and independence; blue for the will to live beneath peaceful skies; orange (apricot) for creativity and hard work. The tricolour of the First Republic (1918–1920) was readopted on 24 August 1990, as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Flag of Azerbaijan

3 colors: blue, red, green.

Sky blue for the Turkic heritage, red for progress and modernity, green for Islam — with a white crescent and eight-pointed star over the red band, the points often read as the eight branches of the Turkic peoples. First flown by the 1918 Democratic Republic, whose leader Mammad Amin Rasulzade helped define it, and restored on 5 February 1991 before full independence.

Flag of Bahrain

2 colors: white, red.

White at the hoist and red at the fly, separated by a five-point zigzag — the five points stand for the five pillars of Islam. The white band goes back to the 1820 maritime treaty with Britain; the points were fixed at five on 14 February 2002, when Bahrain became a kingdom. Only Qatar’s flag shares the serrated design.

Flag of Bangladesh

2 colors: green, red.

A red disc on a green field — the sun rising over Bengal, and the blood of those who died in the 1971 Liberation War; green for the land’s vegetation and its youth. The disc sits slightly toward the hoist so it looks centred when the flag flies. The wartime original carried a gold map of the country; the simplified version was standardized on 17 January 1972.

Flag of Bhutan

3 colors: yellow, orange, white.

Divided diagonally: yellow for the King’s civil authority, orange for the Buddhist spiritual tradition, and across the middle Druk, the white thunder dragon that gives the country its name — Druk Yul, land of the thunder dragon. The jewels in its claws stand for the nation’s wealth. The modern design was fixed in 1969, refined from a flag first flown in 1949.

Flag of Brunei

4 colors: yellow, white, black, red.

Royal yellow — the Sultan’s colour since long before European contact — crossed by white and black diagonal stripes representing Brunei’s two traditional chief ministers. The red crest holds a crescent for Islam, a parasol for monarchy and two upturned hands for the state’s benevolence, with inscriptions reading “Always in service with God’s guidance” and “Brunei, Abode of Peace.” Adopted 29 September 1959 and kept at independence in 1984.

Flag of Cambodia

3 colors: blue, red, white.

Blue-red-blue horizontal bands with Angkor Wat drawn in white across the centre — one of the very few national flags carrying a building. Red stands for the nation and the bravery of the Khmer people, blue for royalty, the temple for religion and heritage. Cambodia has flown Angkor on its flags since 1863; this version returned with the monarchy on 30 June 1993.

Flag of China

2 colors: red, yellow.

Red for the communist revolution and the older red of Chinese tradition; one large gold star for the Communist Party, and four smaller stars for the social classes united under it — workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie — each star’s point angled toward the big one. Chosen from nearly 3,000 proposals and first raised over Tiananmen on 1 October 1949.

Flag of Cyprus

3 colors: white, copper, green.

Deliberately neutral: a white field with the island’s map in copper — the metal that gave Cyprus its name — above two crossed olive branches for peace between the Greek and Turkish communities. The 1960 constitution barred the colours of Greece and Turkey and any cross or crescent. Adopted 16 August 1960; details standardized in 2006.

Flag of East Timor

4 colors: red, black, yellow, white.

A red field for the struggle for liberation; a black triangle for the obscurantism that must be overcome; a yellow arrowhead for the traces of colonial history; and a white star — the light that guides. Designed for the 1975 declaration of independence, it could only be raised for good on 20 May 2002, when East Timor finally became sovereign, making it one of the world’s youngest flags.

Flag of Georgia

2 colors: white, red.

The five-cross flag: a red St George’s cross on white, with a red Bolnisi cross in each quarter — a design documented on medieval Georgian banners and often read as the Five Holy Wounds. Revived by the National Movement and adopted officially on 14 January 2004 after the Rose Revolution.

Flag of India

3 colors: saffron, white, green.

Saffron for courage and renunciation, white for truth and peace, green for the land’s fertility and faith — and in the centre the navy Ashoka Chakra, the 24-spoke wheel of dharma taken from the Lion Capital of Ashoka, signifying that there is life in movement and death in stagnation. Adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947, three weeks before independence.

Flag of Indonesia

2 colors: red, white.

Sang Saka Merah-Putih — the sacred red-and-white. Red for courage and the body, white for purity and the spirit; together they make the human being. The colours reach back to the banners of the Majapahit empire. The flag was hoisted at the proclamation of independence on 17 August 1945, and the original hand-sewn flag is a national relic, replicated for ceremonies rather than flown.

Flag of Iran

3 colors: green, white, red.

Green for Islam, growth and happiness; white for peace and freedom; red for courage and the blood of martyrs. The central emblem, designed by Hamid Nadimi, is a stylized monogram of the word Allah in the form of a tulip — its four crescents and sword also read as the five pillars of Islam. Along the edges of the green and red bands, the takbir is written twenty-two times in Kufic script, for the 22nd of Bahman, the day of the 1979 Revolution. Adopted 29 July 1980.

Flag of Iraq

4 colors: red, white, black, green.

The pan-Arab tricolour — red for courage, white for generosity, black for the triumphs and the dark past of Islam — with the takbir, “God is greatest,” written in green Kufic script across the white band. Saddam Hussein’s handwriting was replaced by Kufic in 2004, and the three green stars were removed on 22 January 2008. I have crossed Iraq under this flag by camper van and walked beneath it in Mosul, months after the battle.

Flag of Israel

2 colors: white, blue.

A white field between two blue stripes — the tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl — with the blue Star of David at the centre, a symbol of Judaism for centuries. Designed for the Zionist movement in 1891 and adopted by the First Zionist Congress in 1897, it became the state flag of Israel on 28 October 1948.

Flag of Japan

2 colors: white, red.

The Hinomaru — the circle of the sun. A crimson disc on white for the land where the sun rises, tied to the sun goddess Amaterasu, mythical ancestor of the emperors. Used on samurai banners for centuries and carried on Japanese ships from the 1600s, it was only legally codified as the national flag on 13 August 1999. White stands for honesty and purity, the disc for the sun itself.

Flag of Jordan

4 colors: black, white, green, red.

The flag of the 1916 Arab Revolt, adapted: black for the Abbasids, white for the Umayyads, green for the Fatimids, and the red chevron of the Hashemite dynasty that leads the kingdom. The white seven-pointed star stands for the seven verses of al-Fatiha, the opening chapter of the Quran — and for the seven hills of Amman. Adopted 16 April 1928.

Flag of Kazakhstan

2 colors: sky blue, gold.

A single sky-blue field — the colour of the eternal sky sacred to the Turkic peoples, and of unity, since it holds no hierarchy of stripes. In gold, a 32-rayed sun above a soaring steppe eagle (berkut), freedom itself; along the hoist runs the koshkar-muiz — ram’s horns — ornament. Designed by Shaken Niyazbekov and adopted 4 June 1992. I slept under this sky with Kazakh nomads in the Ile Alatau.

Flag of Kuwait

4 colors: green, white, red, black.

Pan-Arab colours in horizontal bands — green, white, red — with a black trapezoid at the hoist. A popular reading follows an old Arabic verse: white are our deeds, black our battles, green our lands, red our swords. Adopted 7 September 1961, replacing the red flags Kuwait had flown, like its Gulf neighbours, since the 18th century.

Flag of Kyrgyzstan

2 colors: red, gold.

A red field — the banner colour of the epic hero Manas — carrying a gold sun with forty rays for the forty tribes Manas united. Inside the sun sits the tündük, the crown of the yurt seen from within: home, origin, the union of time and space. Adopted 3 March 1992; in December 2023 the law was amended and the sun’s formerly wavy rays were straightened. My photograph at the top of this page shows the flag torn by mountain wind above the high pastures — taken on the van journey that ended trapped in the Pamir no-man’s-land.

Flag of Laos

3 colors: red, blue, white.

A wide blue band for the Mekong and the country’s wealth, between two red bands for the blood shed for independence, with a white disc — the full moon over the Mekong, and the unity of the people. The flag of the Lao Issara movement and later the Pathet Lao, it became the national flag on 2 December 1975.

Flag of Lebanon

3 colors: red, white, green.

Red bands for the blood shed for liberation, a double-width white band for peace and the snow of the mountains, and at the centre the green cedar of Lebanon — the tree of the Psalms, symbol of holiness, eternity and steadiness. Sketched by deputies during the push for independence and adopted 7 December 1943.

Flag of Malaysia

4 colors: red, white, blue, yellow.

Jalur Gemilang — the Stripes of Glory: fourteen red and white stripes and a fourteen-point star for the equal standing of the thirteen states and the federal territories, a crescent for Islam, and royal yellow for the Malay rulers. Designed by architect Mohamed Hamzah for a 1947 competition; the current fourteen-stripe version dates from 16 September 1963, when Malaysia was formed.

Flag of Maldives

3 colors: red, green, white.

A white crescent for Islam, on a green panel for peace, prosperity and the islands’ palms, framed in red for the blood of national heroes. The Maldives flew plain red flags for centuries; the crescent arrived in the early 20th century, and the current design was adopted at independence, 25 July 1965.

Flag of Mongolia

3 colors: red, blue, gold.

Blue at the centre for the eternal blue sky; red at the sides for progress and the harshness the nation survives. On the hoist band, in gold, the Soyombo — a stacked emblem of fire, sun and moon, spearheads, yin-yang and fortress walls, drawn from the 17th-century script of Zanabazar. The socialist star above it was removed in 1992, when the current flag was adopted on 12 February.

Flag of Myanmar

4 colors: yellow, green, red, white.

Yellow for solidarity among all the country’s peoples, green for peace and the fertile land, red for courage and decisiveness — with one large white star for the union. A complete break with the previous socialist-era flag, introduced under the 2008 constitution and first hoisted on 21 October 2010.

Flag of Nepal

3 colors: crimson, blue, white.

The only non-rectangular national flag on Earth: two stacked pennons in crimson — the colour of the rhododendron, Nepal’s national flower — bordered in blue for peace. The moon in the upper pennon and the twelve-rayed sun in the lower carry a wish: may the nation last as long as the sun and the moon. Standardized in the constitution of 16 December 1962. I spent silent days beneath it in a monastery in Lumbini.

Flag of North Korea

3 colors: red, blue, white.

A broad red panel for revolutionary patriotism, edged in white for purity and framed by blue bands officially read as the desire for peace and friendship. The red star in its white disc is the emblem of communism, the disc itself echoing the Korean taegeuk. Adopted 8 September 1948 under Soviet oversight. I have stood underneath it in Pyongyang — one of the strangest travel experiences of my life.

Flag of Oman

3 colors: white, red, green.

White for peace and the Imamate’s religious authority, green for the Jebel Akhdar — the Green Mountain — and the country’s fertility, red from Oman’s old plain-red banners. In the canton sits the national emblem: a khanjar dagger over two crossed swords, the badge of the ruling dynasty since the 18th century. Introduced by Sultan Qaboos in 1970 and refined on 25 April 1995. I drove 3,000 km beneath it on an Oman road trip.

Flag of Pakistan

2 colors: green, white.

A dark green field with white crescent and five-pointed star — Islam, progress and light — and a white hoist stripe expressly representing the country’s religious minorities. Based on the All-India Muslim League banner and adopted on 11 August 1947, three days before independence.

Flag of Palestine

4 colors: black, white, green, red.

The flag of the 1916 Arab Revolt: black, white and green horizontal bands for the Abbasid, Umayyad and Fatimid dynasties, joined by the red triangle of the Hashemites and of sacrifice. Formally adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964 and proclaimed the flag of the State of Palestine in 1988.

Flag of Philippines

4 colors: blue, red, white, yellow.

Blue for peace, truth and justice; red for patriotism and valour; a white triangle for equality and the Katipunan revolutionary brotherhood. The eight-rayed gold sun honours the first eight provinces that rose against Spain, and the three stars are Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. First unfurled at the declaration of independence on 12 June 1898 — and uniquely, the flag is flown with the red band on top in time of war.

Flag of Qatar

2 colors: maroon, white.

Maroon — not red: tradition says Qatar’s red banners darkened under the Gulf sun and the shade was embraced — separated from a white hoist band by a nine-point serrated line, marking Qatar as the ninth member of the “reconciled emirates” after the 19th-century treaties with Britain. The only national flag whose width is more than twice its height. Adopted 9 July 1971.

Flag of Russia

3 colors: white, blue, red.

The white-blue-red tricolour first flown on Peter the Great’s ships in the 1690s, inspired by the Dutch flag, and the source of the pan-Slavic colours later adopted across Eastern Europe. Suppressed during the Soviet era, it returned in August 1991. A popular reading gives white for nobility, blue for faithfulness and red for courage and love. I crossed 4,383 km beneath it in the deep winter of 2005.

Flag of Saudi Arabia

2 colors: green, white.

The green of Islam carrying the shahada — “There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God” — in white Thuluth script above a sword recalling the unification of the kingdom by Abdulaziz Ibn Saud in the early 20th century, completed in 1932. The flag is made with identical faces so the creed reads correctly from both sides, and it is never flown at half-mast. Standardized 15 March 1973. From my 3,000 km solo drive across the Kingdom.

Flag of Singapore

2 colors: red, white.

Red for universal brotherhood and equality, white for pervading purity and virtue. The crescent stands for a young nation on the rise, and the five stars for its ideals: democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality. Adopted 3 December 1959 with self-government, and kept at full independence in 1965.

Flag of South Korea

4 colors: white, red, blue, black.

The Taegukgi: a white field for peace and purity, centred on the taegeuk — red um-yang in balance — surrounded by four black trigrams for heaven, water, earth and fire, the endless movement of opposites in harmony. First adopted in 1883 under the Joseon dynasty, confirmed by South Korea on 15 October 1949, with details standardized as recently as 2011.

Flag of Sri Lanka

4 colors: maroon, gold, green, orange.

The gold lion bearing a kastane sword walks on maroon, the colour of the Sinhalese majority, framed by four bo-tree leaves for the Buddhist virtues of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. The green and orange stripes stand for the Muslim and Tamil communities. The lion banner reaches back to the island’s founding legends; the current design was completed on 22 May 1972, when Ceylon became Sri Lanka.

Flag of Syria

4 colors: green, white, black, red.

Syria’s flag today is the green-white-black tricolour with three red stars — the independence flag first adopted in 1932, carried through the revolution, and returned to official use after the fall of the Assad government in December 2024; the March 2025 constitutional declaration defines it, and it now flies at the United Nations. Green for the country’s early dynasties and hope, white for peace, black for the past, the stars for the historic provinces. The red-white-black flag with two green stars described here for years was the Assad-era state flag (1980–2024). I crossed Syria under the old flag during the war and returned in 2025 under the new one.

Flag of Tajikistan

3 colors: red, white, green.

Red for the unity of the nation and victory, a double-width white band for purity, cotton and mountain snow, green for the fertile valleys and Novruz. At the centre, a golden crown beneath an arc of seven stars — tāj means crown, and seven is the number of perfection in Tajik tradition, the seven mountains of paradise. Adopted 24 November 1992. My Tajik border story is 24 hours trapped in the Pamir no-man’s-land.

Flag of Thailand

3 colors: red, white, blue.

The Trairanga — tricolour: red for the nation and the blood of its people, white for religion, and the wide central blue for the monarchy. Blue replaced the white elephant of older Siamese flags on 28 September 1917, when Siam joined the First World War Allies — whose flags shared the same three colours. The trilogy nation–religion–king remains the standard reading.

Flag of Turkey

2 colors: red, white.

Al bayrak — the red banner: a white crescent and five-pointed star on red, inherited directly from the Ottoman naval flag standardized in 1844 during the Tanzimat reforms. Crescent and star are far older than Islam in Anatolia — they appear on Byzantine coins of Byzantium itself — but became the empire’s and then the republic’s emblem. The 1936 flag law fixed the exact geometry. Legend places the reflection of the crescent and a star in a pool of blood after the battle of Kosovo. I have crossed Turkey sixteen times.

Flag of Turkmenistan

3 colors: green, red, white.

Green for Islam and the nation, with a claret hoist stripe carrying five carpet guls — the woven emblems of the five great Turkmen tribal groups — above two crossed olive branches added in 1997 for the country’s UN-recognized permanent neutrality. The white crescent stands for a clear future, the five stars for the five provinces. First adopted 19 February 1992; current proportions from 24 January 2001. It is often called the most complex national flag in the world.

Flag of United Arab Emirates

4 colors: red, green, white, black.

The pan-Arab set arranged by 19-year-old Abdullah Al Maainah, winner of the 1971 design competition: a red hoist band for sacrifice joined to green for growth, white for peace and black for strength of mind. First raised on 2 December 1971, the day the federation was born. I live part of every year beneath this flag.

Flag of Uzbekistan

4 colors: blue, white, green, red.

Blue for the sky, water and the banner of Timur; white for peace; green for nature and renewal; thin red lines for the life-force running through every body. The crescent marks the reborn nation, and the twelve stars the twelve months and constellations of the classical calendar. Adopted 18 November 1991 — the first flag law of post-Soviet Central Asia.

Flag of Vietnam

2 colors: red, yellow.

Red for revolution and the blood of the independence struggle; the gold five-pointed star for the union of the classes building the nation — traditionally read as intellectuals, farmers, workers, soldiers and traders. First flown in the 1940 uprising against French rule, the flag of North Vietnam from 1945, and of the whole country since reunification in 1976.

Flag of Yemen

3 colors: red, white, black.

The plain pan-Arab tricolour of the Arab Liberation Flag: red for the blood of martyrs and unity, white for a bright future, black for the dark past. Adopted on 22 May 1990, the day North and South Yemen united, replacing both of their starred and triangled variants. I saw it over the mud skyscrapers of Hadhramaut — that journey is here.

Flags I watched change

Travel long enough and the flags themselves start moving under you. Since this page was first published in 2019, three of the flags on it changed design or use — and I saw the changes with my own eyes.

Afghanistan: from tricolour to white. The black-red-green tricolour I drove under in 2012 belonged to the Islamic Republic. Since August 2021 the country’s de facto authorities fly a white flag with the shahada in black — and the giant flag over Kabul’s Wazir Akbar Khan Hill is now that severe white field. I went back and photographed the new visual reality.

Kyrgyzstan: almost the same flag, but not quite. In December 2023 Kyrgyzstan straightened the formerly wavy rays of its forty-ray sun. The red flag I photographed in the mountains — the one at the top of this page — shows the design of the first three decades of independence.

Syria: two flags in one Damascus. The strongest change, because both versions are still physically present in the same city. After the fall of the Assad government in December 2024, the green-white-black independence flag with three red stars returned to official use — defined in the March 2025 constitutional declaration, flying at the United Nations. In the souqs of Damascus in 2025 I photographed the new flags overhead — and, a few streets away, the old red-white-black flag with two green stars still painted across a shop’s metal shutters.

Every country behind these flags is logged, with dates, in my 28-year travel ledger — and the journeys behind the best of them are told in my best travel experiences.