Flag of Turkey

Turkey
Use National flag and ensign
Proportion 2:3
Adopted 1844
Design A red field with a white crescent and star slightly right of center.[1]
PAN: 186C
RGB: 227, 10, 23
HEX: #E30A17
Variant flag of Turkey
Name Presidential flag of Turkey
Use Other
Proportion 2:3
Variant flag of Turkey
Name Flag of the Customs Administration
Use Other
Proportion 2:3
Variant flag of Turkey
Name Flag of the Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish Armed Forces.
Use Other
Proportion 1:1

The flag of Turkey (Turkish: Türk bayrağı, meaning Turkish flag) is a red flag featuring a white crescent and a white star. The flag is often called al bayrak (the red flag) and referred to as al sancak (the red banner) in the Turkish national anthem.

The current design of the Turkish flag is directly derived from the late Ottoman flag, which had acquired its final form in 1844.

The measures, geometric proportions, and exact tone of red of the flag of Turkey were legally standardized with the Turkish Flag Law on May 29, 1936.[2]

History

The red represents the time of war they went through and how they survived. The star and crescent design appears on Ottoman flags beginning in the late 18th or early 19th century. The introduction of the white star and crescent on red as the flag of the Ottoman Empire dates to the Tanzimat reforms of 1844.

Legendary origins

Historically, in accounting for the crescent and star symbol, Ottomans sometimes referred to a legendary dream of the eponymous founder of the Ottoman house, Osman I, in which he is reported to have seen a moon rising from the breast of a qadi whose daughter he sought to marry. "When full, it descended into his own breast. Then from his loins there sprang a tree, which as it grew came to cover the whole world with the shadow of its green and beautiful branches." Beneath it Osman saw the world spread out before him, surmounted by the crescent.[3]

Legal basis

Fundamentals of the Turkish flag during the Republic period of Turkey were laid down by Turkish Flag Law No. 2994 on May 29, 1936. Turkish Flag Regulation No. 2/7175 dated July 28, 1937, and Supplementary Regulation No. 11604/2 dated July 29, 1939, were enacted to describe how the flag law would be implemented. The Turkish Flag Law No. 2893 dated September 22, 1983, and Published in the Official Gazette on September 24, 1983, was promulgated six months after its publication. According to Article 9 of Law No. 2893, a statute including the fundamentals of the implementation was also published.

Technical info

In a RGB color space, the red color of the Turkish flag is composed of 89% red, 3.9% green and 9% blue. In a CMYK color space, it is composed of 0% cyan, 95.6% magenta, 89.9% yellow and 11% black. It has a hue angle of 356.4 degrees, a saturation of 91.6% and a lightness of 46.5%. The red color on the Turkish flag is vivid red and this color can be obtained by blending #FF142E with #C70000. Closest websafe color is: #CC0000.

Construction

Letter Measure Length
G Width
A Distance between the centre of the outer crescent and the seam of the white band 1/2 G
B Diameter of the outer circle of the crescent 1/2 G
C Distance between the centres of the inner and outer circles of the crescent 1/16 G
D Diameter of the inner circle of the crescent 2/5 G
E Distance between the inner circle of the crescent and the circle around the star 1/3 G
F diameter of the circle around the star 1/4 G
L Length 1 ½ G
M Width of the white hem at the hoist 1/30 L

A common mistake in rendering the flag is to omit the white hem at the hoist (the left side).

Notes and references

  1. ↑ http://mevzuat.meb.gov.tr/html/18171_0.html
  2. ↑ Turkish Historical Society, "Türk Bayrağı Kanunu" (Law on Turkish Flag), http://www.ttk.org.tr/index.php?Page=Sayfa&No=81.
  3. ↑ Lord Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire, Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1977, pp 23-24.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Flags of Turkey.