At One Place

The flag of Iran

The flag of Iran
Three equal horizontal bands of green, white and red, with a red emblem centred on the white and a band of stylised Kufic script repeated along the inner edges of the green and red bands.
Ratio 4:7 · current design adopted 1980

The takbir is repeated twenty-two times, eleven along the top band and eleven along the bottom, marking the twenty-second day of the eleventh month of the Iranian calendar — the date of the 1979 revolution. That makes it one of very few flags that encodes a date as a repetition count rather than a written number. The central emblem was designed by Hamid Nadimi and is a geometric composition rather than a picture of anything. The lion and sun of the previous flag were removed in 1980.

What the colours mean

  • Green #239F40 Growth, happiness and Islam
  • White #FFFFFF Peace and honesty
  • Red #DA0000 Courage and martyrdom

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.

The symbols on it

What What it stands for
Central emblem A stylised composition of four crescents and a sword, readable as the word Allah
Repeated script ALLĀHU AKBAR written eleven times along each of the two inner edges — 22 times in total
Ratio
4:7
Current design adopted
1980
Colours
green, white, red

Common questions

What does the flag of Iran look like?
Three equal horizontal bands of green, white and red, with a red emblem centred on the white and a band of stylised Kufic script repeated along the inner edges of the green and red bands.
What do the colours of the Iran flag mean?
Green: growth, happiness and Islam. White: peace and honesty. Red: courage and martyrdom.
When was the Iran flag adopted?
The current design dates from 1980, and its official ratio is 4:7.

Related pages

Sources

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

How these figures are compiled and checked