Flag of Jordan

How to read it

Article 4 of Jordan’s constitution of 1952 fixes the flag’s form and measurements. It is twice as long as it is high, divided into three equal horizontal stripes: black at the top, white in the centre and green at the bottom. At the staff is a red triangle whose base is the full height of the flag and whose height is half the flag’s length. In the triangle is a white seven-pointed star that fits inside a circle one fourteenth of the flag’s length across, centred where the lines bisecting the triangle’s angles meet, with the axis through one of its points parallel to the base of the triangle. The flag has been in use in its present form since 1922 and takes its shape and colours from the banner of the Great Arab Revolt, launched from Mecca in 1916, Al-Mamlaka says; Store norske leksikon dates its official adoption by the Emirate of Transjordan to 16 April 1928. Jordanians mark 16 April each year as National Flag Day.

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Telling it from Palestine’s flag

Palestine’s flag has the same black, white and green stripes in the same order and a red triangle at the pole, but no star. Its triangle is also shorter: Palestine’s flag law makes it reach a third of the way along the flag, where Jordan’s constitution has it reach halfway. A star in the triangle means Jordan.

From the Arab Revolt banner

Sharif Hussein declared the Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule in the Hejaz on 10 June 1916, and the red triangle appeared on its flag then, writes PalQuest, the encyclopedia of the Institute for Palestine Studies. In 1917 the new Hashemite state’s flag was set as black, green and white stripes with a vermilion triangle at the staff. The first flag with a white seven-pointed star in the triangle was the one made for Hussein’s son Faisal when the General Syrian Congress invited him to be king of Syria. Jordan’s earlier versions, from 1921 to 1939, had other proportions and no star, according to Store norske leksikon.

Telling it from Syria’s flag

Syria’s flag has the same four colours but no triangle: its stripes run green, white and black from the top, the reverse of Jordan’s, with three red stars on the white, under Syria’s constitutional declaration of 2025.