Flags of Asia

The crescent and star, several unrelated times over

The Pan-Arab colors of the Gulf and Levant

Red revolutionary fields in East and Southeast Asia

Dynastic and religious imagery carried straight through into the modern flag

Recurring colors & symbols

• Crescent and star — Appears on Turkey's, Pakistan's, Azerbaijan's and Malaysia's flags, but each adoption traces to a separate national history — not one shared lineage, despite the visual similarity.
• Red, white, black, green (Pan-Arab colors) — Descended from the 1916 Arab Revolt flag; Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait each recombine the same four colors into a distinct national layout.
• Red field with gold stars — China's 1949 flag set the visual template that Vietnam's and (loosely) North Korea's communist-era flags relate to, each with its own star count and history.
• Sun disc — Japan's hinomaru and Kazakhstan's golden sun are unrelated symbols with the same subject — Japan's is an ancient imperial motif, Kazakhstan's a 1992 post-Soviet design representing peace and prosperity on the steppe.
• Dragons and mythic creatures — Bhutan's Druk is unique among all national flags — no other country puts a fully rendered dragon at the center of its flag.

Countries (48)

• Afghanistan — Has changed its flag more often than almost any nation on earth — over 20 versions since 1901 as governments have repeatedly turned over.
• Armenia — Red-blue-orange bands officially read as the land, hope, and the courage and work of the Armenian people, restored from a 1918 design in 1990.
• Azerbaijan — Blue-red-green bands with a crescent and star, the crescent chosen deliberately in 1991 to echo Turkey's flag as a statement of Turkic kinship.
• Bahrain — A red field with a five-point serrated white edge, the points added in 2002 specifically to represent the five pillars of Islam.
• Bangladesh — A red disc set slightly off-center on green, deliberately shifted from true center so it reads correctly when the flag is flying, not just laid flat.
• Bhutan — The only national flag anywhere depicting a full dragon — the Druk, or Thunder Dragon, clutching jewels that represent the country's wealth.
• Brunei — Carries a full national crest on a yellow field bordered black and white, yellow reserved historically as the Sultan's own royal color.
• Cambodia — The only national flag in the world depicting an actual building — the silhouette of Angkor Wat, rendered in white on a red-blue field.
• China — One large gold star for the Communist Party ringed by four smaller stars for the social classes it claimed to unite, adopted days after the 1949 founding.
• Cyprus — A map of the island itself in copper-orange sits on white, deliberately excluding both Greek blue and Turkish red to avoid favoring either community.
• Georgia — A large central red cross with four smaller crosses is a revived medieval design, restored in 2004 after decades under a Soviet-era flag.
• India — Its navy-blue central wheel is the Ashoka Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel copied from a 3rd-century-BCE stone pillar erected by Emperor Ashoka.
• Indonesia — A plain red-over-white bicolor visually near-identical to Monaco's, a resemblance close enough that Indonesia has formally raised the issue internationally.
• Iran — The word 'Allahu Akbar' is stitched 22 times along the borders of its green and red bands, one for each day of the 1979 revolution's calendar month.
• Iraq — Carries the Arabic phrase 'God is Greatest' in Kufic script across its white band, added in 1991 and kept through several regime changes since.
• Israel — A blue Star of David between two blue stripes, modeled directly on the tallit, the traditional Jewish prayer shawl.
• Japan — Despite its ancient sun-disc motif, the hinomaru had no formal legal status as the national flag until the 1999 Act on National Flag and Anthem finally codified it.
• Jordan — A near-direct continuation of the 1916 Arab Revolt flag, right down to its seven-pointed star, which stands for the seven verses that open the Quran.
• Kazakhstan — A golden sun and soaring steppe eagle on sky blue, adopted in 1992 to represent peace and the open sky over the Central Asian steppe.
• Kuwait — Black-green-white-red bands using the same Pan-Arab palette as Jordan and Iraq, but arranged into a unique trapezoid black hoist rather than a star or eagle.
• Kyrgyzstan — A red field with a golden sun whose 40 rays represent the 40 tribes historically said to have united to form the Kyrgyz nation.
• Laos — A white disc on blue between red bands, the disc representing the full moon over the Mekong River, adopted when the monarchy fell in 1975.
• Lebanon — A green cedar tree sits at the center of a red-white-red field, the cedar a direct reference to the biblical Cedars of Lebanon.
• Malaysia — Fourteen red-and-white stripes and a 14-point star represent the country's 13 states plus the federal government, styled closely on the US flag's stripe format.
• Maldives — A green rectangle with a white crescent sits inside a red border, the crescent's horns pointing away from the hoist, a detail some Islamic-flag traditions specify.
• Mongolia — Carries the Soyombo, a stacked national symbol of fire, sun, moon and yin-yang, used on Mongolian banners since at least the 17th century.
• Myanmar — Redesigned entirely in 2010 to a yellow-green-red tricolor with a white star, replacing a flag that had been in use since 1974.
• Nepal — The only non-rectangular national flag in the world, two stacked crimson pennants carrying a moon and sun said to symbolize the hope the nation outlasts them both.
• North Korea — A red star on white inside a broad red band, adopted in 1948 specifically to break from the plain white 'Taegukgi'-style flag still used in the South.
• Oman — Carries a full khanjar dagger and crossed swords on its white band, the same emblem used on the national coat of arms since well before independence.
• Pakistan — A white vertical band added at the hoist represents religious minorities, distinguishing it from the plain green-crescent flag of the pre-partition Muslim League.
• Palestine — A black-white-green tricolor with a red hoist triangle, the exact 1916 Arab Revolt flag with only its band order changed.
• Philippines — The only national flag routinely flown upside down on purpose — inverting the blue and red fields signals the country is officially in a state of war.
• Qatar — A serrated white-and-maroon flag with nine points along the dividing edge, one of the longest-aspect-ratio flags of any country, roughly 2.5 times as long as tall.
• Saudi Arabia — Prints its sword below the shahada in a specific left-to-right orientation on both sides of the flag, requiring a fully reversible double-sided fabric rather than a single printed layer.
• Singapore — A white crescent and five stars on red stand for the five ideals of democracy, peace, progress, justice, and equality, chosen at 1959 self-governance.
• South Korea — Centers on the taegeuk, a red-and-blue yin-yang, ringed by four black trigrams drawn from the ancient Chinese I Ching.
• Sri Lanka — A sword-bearing lion traces directly to the royal standard of the medieval Kingdom of Kotte, predating colonization by centuries.
• Syria — Its red-white-black tricolor with two green stars was the flag of the short-lived United Arab Republic with Egypt (1958-1961), later restored.
• Tajikistan — A golden crown under seven stars sits on red-white-green bands, the crown and stars chosen in 1992 to represent Tajik sovereignty and unity.
• Thailand — Five horizontal bands of red-white-blue-white-red, redesigned in 1917 specifically to add blue in solidarity with the Allied powers of World War I.
• Timor-Leste — A yellow arrowhead and white star on red-and-black triangles, adopted at independence in 2002, the same design first used briefly in 1975.
• Turkey — Its crescent and star long predate the modern republic, with a national account tracing the design to Ottoman-era naval ensigns.
• Turkmenistan — The most visually complex national flag flown regularly — a green field carrying a full vertical carpet-guls pattern unique to Turkmen tribal weaving.
• United Arab Emirates — Adopted in 1971 the same day the seven emirates federated, using the Pan-Arab red-green-white-black palette with no star or crest at all.
• Uzbekistan — Blue-white-green bands separated by thin red fimbriations carry twelve stars, one for each month of the Uzbek calendar, adopted at 1991 independence.
• Vietnam — A single gold star on red, first flown in 1940 by Viet Minh forces and extended to the whole country after reunification in 1976.
• Yemen — A plain red-white-black tricolor with no emblem, adopted at the 1990 unification of North and South Yemen and left deliberately unadorned.