Flag of Bangladesh

How to read it

Article 4 of the Constitution of Bangladesh says the national flag is a red circle on a green background, and leaves the details to law. They are in the Bangladesh National Anthem, Flag and Emblem Order, 1972, President’s Order No. 130 of 31 October 1972: on a flag 10 long, the width is 6 and the red circle’s radius 2, and the circle’s centre is where a perpendicular drawn 4½ along from the pole side meets the line across the middle of the flag. The order names the colours by dye, Procion Brilliant Green H-2RS at 50 parts per 1,000 for the green and Procion Brilliant Orange H-2RS at 60 parts per 1,000 for the red. Banglapedia calls the green “bottle green”, and Store norske leksikon dates the official adoption of the flag to 17 January 1972.

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Telling it from Japan’s flag

Japan’s flag is also a red disc, on white. Japan’s Cabinet Office gives its height as two thirds of its length and its disc as three fifths of the height across, in the centre of the flag. Bangladesh’s field is green, the flag is a little longer (10:6), and the disc sits towards the pole, its centre nine twentieths of the length from the pole side. Store norske leksikon says the disc is set off centre so that it looks centred when the flag flies in the wind.

The first flag had a map in the disc

The first flag of Bangladesh was raised on 2 March 1971, on the roof of the Arts Faculty at Dhaka University: a green field and a red circle with a map of Bangladesh in it, designed by Shib Narayan Das, The Daily Star writes. Store norske leksikon says the map was gold. Banglapedia records that the map was later withdrawn.

Sizes and flag days

The 1972 rules set three sizes for buildings, as Banglapedia gives them: about 3 × 1.8 m (10 × 6 ft), 1.5 × 0.9 m (5 × 3 ft) and 0.8 × 0.5 m (2½ × 1½ ft). The flag flies on public and private buildings and at Bangladesh’s missions abroad on Independence Day, Victory Day and Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi, and at half-mast on Shaheed Day, 21 February.