Flag of Turkmenistan

Flag of Turkmenistan
	; ;
Vexillological symbol :	?
Aspect ratio:	2: 3
Officially accepted:	January 24, 2001

The flag of Turkmenistan was carried in a confusingly similar form from 1992. The official introduction of today's variant took place on January 24, 2001.

Description and meaning

In its representation, the flag is the most complex national flag of all nations. The white crescent moon with the five stars on a green cloth indicates the Turkic peoples and the green color indicates Islam . At the leech five traditional carpet patterns are shown, called Gul , they are named after five tribes of the country. The olive branches at the bottom of the carpet pattern symbolize the peace and neutrality of the Turkmen.

In a Turkmen law, the national flag is described as “a symbol of the unity and independence of the nation and the neutrality of the state” .

history

Waving flag of Turkmenistan

From 1894 the entire area of what is now Turkmenistan was part of the Russian Empire . When the Communists came to power, the Turkestan ASSR was founded, which included the later five Central Asian Soviet Republics. On February 17, 1925, the Turkmen SSR was established. At first it only used the simple Soviet flag , from 1937 a red flag with the gold lettering TSSR and from the 1940s with the Cyrillic letters TCCP . From August 1, 1953, the Turkmen SSR used a variation of the flag of the Soviet Union typical of the Soviet republics. Two horizontal, light blue stripes were added to the Soviet flag. They symbolize the Amu Darya and Atrek rivers . As with all Soviet flags, the star, hammer and sickle were not depicted on the back of the flag.

Turkmenistan gained independence from the Soviet Union on October 27, 1991, and the new national flag was not introduced until 1992. On January 29, 1997, two olive branches were added to the carpet pattern as a sign of the country's neutrality and the “peace-loving nature” of the Turkmen, and the crescent moon and stars are now shown larger. In 2001 the aspect ratio was changed from the "Soviet" 1: 2 to 2: 3. The stars now all point vertically downwards and, like the crescent moon, are narrower again.