🇹🇷

Flag of Turkey

Asia

Download SVG

Quick Facts

Capital
Ankara
Flag adopted
1936
Population
85,664,944
Area
783,562 km²
Languages
Turkish
Currency
Turkish lira (₺) — TRY
Demonym
Turkish
Government
presidential republic
Subregion
Western Asia
Driving side
Right
Timezones
UTC+03:00
Independence
1923

Religions

  • Muslim 99.8%
  • Other 0.2%

About This Flag

The flag of Turkey features a red field with a white crescent moon and a white five-pointed star slightly left of center. The red represents the blood of Turkish soldiers and martyrs, while the crescent and star are traditional symbols of Islam and have been associated with Turkic peoples for centuries.

The design evolved from the flag of the Ottoman Empire, which also used a crescent and star on red. According to popular legend, the reflection of the moon and a star in a pool of blood after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 inspired the design.

The flag was officially standardized in its current proportions on June 5, 1936, though the basic design had been in use since at least the late Ottoman period.

What the colors & design mean

Red represents the blood shed by Turkish soldiers and the sovereignty of the nation. The white crescent is a traditional Islamic and Turkic symbol. The five-pointed star represents the diverse heritage of the Turkish people.

red white

Pattern: Solid Field

Bordering countries (8)

🇦🇲 Armenia 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan 🇧🇬 Bulgaria 🇬🇪 Georgia 🇬🇷 Greece 🇮🇷 Iran 🇮🇶 Iraq 🇸🇾 Syria

Fun Facts

  • The Turkish flag is one of the oldest national flag designs still in continuous use, with the crescent-and-star-on-red motif dating to the late Ottoman Empire in the 18th century.
  • Legend holds that the crescent and star appeared as a reflection in a pool of blood after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, though historians consider this origin story apocryphal.
  • Turkish law strictly regulates the flag's proportions — the 1936 flag law specifies the exact geometric placement of the crescent and star using mathematical formulas.
  • Turkey straddles two continents, with the small European portion (Eastern Thrace) separated from the Asian portion (Anatolia) by the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits.

Similar looking flags

These flags share similar colors and patterns:

🇹🇷 Tunisia 🇹🇷 Japan 🇹🇷 Switzerland

More Asia Flags

🇦🇫 Afghanistan · 🇦🇲 Armenia · 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan · 🇧🇭 Bahrain · 🇧🇩 Bangladesh · 🇧🇹 Bhutan · 🇧🇳 Brunei · 🇰🇭 Cambodia

View all Asia flags →

Explore by Category

Flags with red Flags with white

Test Your Knowledge!

Think you can identify the flag of Turkey?

Play Flag Quiz