At One Place

The flag of Bangladesh

The flag of Bangladesh
A dark green field with a red disc set slightly toward the hoist of centre.
Ratio 3:5 · current design adopted 1972
Bangladesh

The disc is deliberately off-centre, set at nine-twentieths of the flag's length from the hoist, so that it appears centred when the flag is flying and the fly end is further from the eye. That is the same optical correction Japan used before 1999 and abandoned. The original 1971 flag had a yellow map of the country inside the red disc; it was removed in January 1972 because it was impossible to draw correctly on the reverse. The design is credited to a group of student activists at Dhaka University in June 1970.

Flags it gets confused with

Bangladesh
Japan
Palau

Drawn at each flag’s own official ratio, which is itself the difference in some of these pairs.

Flag How to tell them apart
Japan Japan's field is white and its disc is exactly centred.
Palau Palau's field is light blue and its off-centre disc is yellow.

What the colours mean

  • Green #006A4E The greenery of the land, and its vitality
  • Red #F42A41 The sun rising over Bengal, and the blood of those who died in 1971

Flag laws usually specify a Pantone chip, a CMYK mix or just a colour name. Converting any of those to sRGB is lossy, which is why published hex values disagree.

Ratio
3:5
Current design adopted
1972
Colours
green, red

Common questions

What does the flag of Bangladesh look like?
A dark green field with a red disc set slightly toward the hoist of centre.
What do the colours of the Bangladesh flag mean?
Green: the greenery of the land, and its vitality. Red: the sun rising over Bengal, and the blood of those who died in 1971.
How do you tell the Bangladesh flag from the Japan one?
Japan's field is white and its disc is exactly centred.
When was the Bangladesh flag adopted?
The current design dates from 1972, and its official ratio is 3:5.

Related pages

Sources

  1. The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (Public domain (US Government))

How these figures are compiled and checked