The red flag with the white crescent and star — how it is defined in law, where it came from, the legends told about it, and the anthem and symbols that accompany it.
Last reviewed on 27 September 2026.
Few national flags are as visible in daily life as Türkiye's. The red field with its white crescent and star — known in Turkish as Ay Yıldız, "moon star", or more formally as Al Sancak, "the crimson banner" — hangs from government buildings and school courtyards, but also from apartment balconies, shop fronts, fishing boats and the rear windows of taxis. For many Turks it carries an emotional weight well beyond its official role as a state symbol. This page explains what the flag looks like and how it is defined in law, where the design came from, the stories told about it, how it is treated in practice, and the other symbols that sit alongside it, including the national anthem.
The flag is a rectangle of red bearing a white crescent, open towards the fly, and a white five-pointed star placed just beyond the crescent's opening, with one point aimed back towards the hoist. There is nothing else on it: no coat of arms, no inscription, no border.
There is no single official "meaning" written into law for the colours or the shapes. The red is widely associated with the blood of those who died for the country, and that reading runs through Turkish poetry and school textbooks, including the national anthem. The crescent and star are old symbols of the Ottoman state, and before that they had a long history across the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. Many people also read them as Islamic symbols, although the crescent's use in the region predates Islam and the modern Republic presents the flag as a national rather than a religious emblem. Most Turks see it first and foremost as a symbol of independence and national unity.
Although the crescent-and-star flag was already in use when the Republic was proclaimed in 1923, its exact form was not fixed in detail until the Turkish Flag Law of 29 May 1936 (Türk Bayrağı Kanunu). The law set out the shape, the placement of the crescent and star, and the relationships between every element, all expressed as fractions of a single measurement: the height of the flag. A later flag law passed in 1983, together with accompanying regulations, replaced the 1936 text but kept the same design, and it also sets out rules on how and where the flag is flown.
The construction works like this. The flag's height is the base unit, and its length is one and a half times its height, giving the official ratio of 2:3. The crescent is formed by two overlapping circles: a larger outer circle whose centre sits half the flag's height in from the hoist edge, and a smaller inner circle, shifted slightly towards the fly, which cuts away the inside to leave the crescent shape. The star sits inside an imaginary circle of fixed size, positioned so that it lies just outside the crescent's opening. The drawing above follows these relationships.
The law names the colour simply as red, rather than giving a precise technical specification. In digital use the red is commonly given as the hex value #E30A17, the value used on this page,.
The modern flag is a direct inheritance from the Ottoman Empire. The early Ottomans used banners of various colours, and for much of the empire's history there was no single national flag in the modern sense. The crescent appeared on many of these standards over the centuries, and red became increasingly associated with the state and the navy.
By the late 18th century a red flag with a white crescent was in common use, and the star was added around the turn of the 19th century. Early versions of the star often had eight points; the five-pointed star became standard over the following decades. The red flag with white crescent and star was formally adopted as the Ottoman state flag in the 1840s, during the period of reform known as the Tanzimat, and it remained in use until the end of the empire. When the Grand National Assembly in Ankara led the War of Independence and then founded the Republic under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, it kept the flag rather than designing a new one. What changed in 1936 was not the symbol itself but its precise legal definition.
The crescent and star combination also has a pre-Ottoman history. It appears on coins and emblems from antiquity in the region, and it is associated in particular with Byzantium, the city that later became Constantinople and then Istanbul. Historians differ on how far, if at all, the Ottomans consciously borrowed it after taking the city in 1453.
Because the flag's documented history is gradual and rather unromantic, a number of origin stories have grown up around it. They are part of Turkish popular culture and are often told to children, but they should be understood as legends, not history.
The flag is treated with considerable respect, both by law and by custom. The 1983 flag law and its regulations set out where the flag must be flown — on state buildings, schools, border posts and ships, among others — and on which days it is displayed more widely. They also set out how it should not be treated. In broad terms:
Beyond the flag regulations, Turkish criminal law protects the symbols of the state. Publicly degrading the flag is an offence under the Penal Code, and the provision is taken seriously. Treating the flag casually — as a picnic blanket, say, or a prop in a jokey photo — can cause genuine offence and, in extreme cases, legal trouble.
In everyday life the flag is displayed far more widely than the law requires. On national holidays such as Republic Day on 29 October, National Sovereignty and Children's Day on 23 April, the 19 May commemoration of Atatürk and Youth and Sports Day, and Victory Day on 30 August, flags fill balconies and streets, and huge versions are hung from buildings and hillsides. The holidays and festivals page lists the main dates.
The national anthem is the İstiklal Marşı, the "Independence March". Its words were written by the poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy and adopted by the Grand National Assembly on 12 March 1921, in the middle of the War of Independence and before the Republic itself existed. Ersoy's poem was chosen from a national competition; he is said to have been reluctant to enter a contest with a cash prize, and he is widely reported to have donated the money to a charitable cause. The full poem has ten stanzas, but only the first two are sung as the anthem. The music in use today, composed by Osman Zeki Üngör, was adopted in 1930.
The anthem opens with an image of the flag itself:
Korkma, sönmez bu şafaklarda yüzen al sancak;
Sönmeden yurdumun üstünde tüten en son ocak.
"Fear not; the crimson banner that ripples in these dawns shall not fade,
Before the last hearth burning over my homeland is extinguished."
The anthem is played at official ceremonies, sporting events and the start of the school week, and people stand for it. Mehmet Akif Ersoy is honoured as the "national poet", and 12 March is marked each year as the anniversary of the anthem's adoption.
Türkiye has no official coat of arms. Where other countries would use one, the state typically uses the crescent and star on its own, often in a red oval, as on passports and some official documents. Other symbols that visitors are likely to encounter include:
There is no single official definition. The red is widely associated with the blood of those who died for the country, a theme echoed in the national anthem. The white crescent and star are long-standing symbols inherited from the Ottoman state and used in the region since antiquity. Most Turks see the flag above all as a symbol of independence and national unity.
The flag's length is one and a half times its height, giving a ratio of 2:3. The Turkish Flag Law of 1936, later replaced by a 1983 law with the same design, defines every element — the two circles forming the crescent and the circle enclosing the star — as fractions of the flag's height.
The flag comes directly from the Ottoman Empire, which formally adopted a red flag with a white crescent and star in the 1840s after decades of similar use. The crescent-and-star motif itself is much older and appears in the region in antiquity, notably in connection with Byzantium.
It is a popular legend rather than history. Versions place it after different battles, including Kosovo in 1389. The documented history shows the flag developing gradually through Ottoman use, with the design formalised in the 1840s.
The words of the İstiklal Marşı (Independence March) were written by the poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy and adopted by the Grand National Assembly on 12 March 1921, during the War of Independence. Only the first two of its ten stanzas are sung. The current music, by Osman Zeki Üngör, was adopted in 1930.
Yes, and flags are sold everywhere. Visitors should treat it with the same respect locals do: keep it off the ground, do not write on it or use it as a costume or blanket, and avoid anything that could look like mockery. Publicly degrading the flag is a criminal offence in Türkiye.