Flag of Nepal

Flag of Nepal
Vexillological symbol :	?
Aspect ratio:	1.219: 1
Officially accepted:	December 16, 1962

Flag of Nepal

The current flag of Nepal was officially adopted as the national flag on December 16, 1962 . It was traditionally used in different variations 200 years earlier.

meaning

The color blue symbolizes peace . Carmine red is the Nepalese national color . The crescent moon and star symbolize the royal family, while the sun symbolizes the noble Rana dynasty , which de facto ruled the country for a long time and inherited the post of prime minister. Today these symbols represent the hope that the nation will last as long as the heavenly bodies. The two corners stand for the mountain peaks of the Himalayas .

shape

The Nepalese flag is the only national flag in the world that has more than four corners. In addition to the flag of Switzerland, it is the only national flag that does not have the shape of a rectangle with unequal edge lengths (the official flag of the Vatican is also square, but rectangular variants are also officially used).

The unusual shape of this flag was created 100 years ago when two pennants were combined into one flag. When the constitution was amended in 1962, the faces were removed from the moon and sun. The red interior of the flag is in an exact 3: 4 aspect ratio. Including the blue border, the aspect ratio of the circumscribing flag rectangle is approx. 1: 1.219.

On November 9, 1990, detailed instructions on the geometrical construction of the flag were added to the Constitution of Nepal, which works using only a compass and a ruler . In the constitution of 2015, this article has been adopted in fact unchanged. The article describes the procedure for constructing the flag on crimson fabric starting from the baseline (width) and height:

• The height is defined as ⁴ ⁄ _{3 of} the width.
• The lower triangle has a 45 ° angle on the right. The extension of the diagonal therefore meets the left edge at a distance above the base line which is equal to the width of the base line.
• The horizontal line of the upper triangle intersects the oblique line of the lower triangle so that the distance from this intersection to the lower right point is equal to the width of the base line.
• There is also the blue border. Its width and the position and size of the sun and moon are also precisely defined.

Former flags

• 

  ^? Flag version until 1962

Subnational flags

• 

  Kathmandu

Party flags

The various parties in Nepal also use their own flags.

• 

  Rastriya Prajatantra Party RPP (National Democratic Party)

• 

  Communist Party of Nepal - United Marxists-Leninists

literature

• Smith / Neubecker: coats of arms and flags of all nations. Munich 1980, ISBN 3-87045-183-1 .
• Michel R. Lupant: Drapeaux royaux et militaires du Népal. Center Belgo-Européen d'Études des Drapeaux 1995.

Web links

Commons : Flags of Nepal  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Flags of the World - Nepal (English)
• Numberphile: The Most Mathematical Flag , Geometric Construction of the Nepalese Flag

Footnotes

1. ↑ The exact aspect ratio of the flag is: ${\displaystyle {\frac {24+{\frac {297-180{\sqrt {2}}}{92-36{\sqrt {2}}}}\cdot \left(1+{\frac {8-3{\sqrt {2}}}{{\sqrt {118-48{\sqrt {2}}}}-6}}\right)}{32+{\frac {297-180{\sqrt {2}}}{92-36{\sqrt {2}}}}\cdot \left(1+{\frac {6}{\left(8-3{\sqrt {2}}\right)\cdot \left({\sqrt {1+{\frac {18}{41-24{\sqrt {2}}}}}}-1\right)}}\right)}}={\frac {3\left(40665857401448+2001055256793{\sqrt {2}}+144{\sqrt {17\left(10411242561157458401-2208656823577139226{\sqrt {2}}\right)}}\right)}{164926945077845}}\approx 0.82033758776860084636\ldots }$
2. ^ Constitution of Nepal - Schedule 1 1. Amendment to the Constitution of Nepal. Retrieved November 10, 2013
3. ^ Constitution of Nepal, Schedule-1 . 2015, p. 146 ( deutsch-nepal.de [PDF] Unofficial English Translation).