Flag of Malaysia

How to read it

The flag has fourteen stripes of equal width, beginning with red at the top and ending with white at the bottom, and a dark blue canton by the pole holding a yellow crescent and star. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s library also gives red for the courage and tenacity of the people and white for sincerity. The design comes from a competition held in 1949 by the Federation of Malaya: Mohamed Hamzah, an architect with the Johor Public Works Department, won it from 373 entries, The Star and Malay Mail report. The Federal Legislative Council adopted the final design on 19 April 1950, and it was first raised on 26 May 1950 at the palace of the Sultan of Selangor. It then had eleven stripes and an eleven-pointed star. At midnight on 31 August 1957 it went up at what is now Dataran Merdeka as the Union Jack came down. On the eve of 31 August 1997 Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad gave it its name, Jalur Gemilang, chosen from names the public had suggested.

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Telling it from the US and Liberian flags

The United States flag also has red and white stripes and a blue canton, but thirteen stripes and many white stars. Malaysia’s has fourteen stripes, and its canton holds a single yellow star with fourteen points beside a yellow crescent. Liberia’s flag has one star too, but white and five-pointed, over eleven stripes, with no crescent.

From eleven stripes to fourteen

Mohamed Hamzah’s design had eleven blue and white stripes and a red canton with a crescent and a five-pointed star, white in Malay Mail’s account and yellow in The Star’s. Before it was finalised the stripes became red and white and the canton blue, and the star gained six points to make eleven, one for each state of the Federation. Malay Mail credits these changes to Datuk Onn Jaafar; The Star to the Conference of Rulers and the Federal Legislative Council. When Malaysia was formed in 1963 with Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore, three stripes were added and the star went to fourteen points. Singapore left in 1965 and the design stayed as it was. Since Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory on 1 February 1974, the fourteenth stripe and point have stood for the federal territories, now Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan together.

Leaving out the crescent

In April 2025 the Sin Chew Daily printed a front-page drawing of the flag without its crescent, for a visit by China’s President Xi Jinping, and apologised for a “technical error”. The King, Sultan Ibrahim, said that showing the Jalur Gemilang without the crescent could not be accepted, Malaysiakini reported. The Ceremonial and Protocol Division of the Prime Minister’s Department sets out how the flag is shown, as Malay Mail summarised it in 2025: it must begin with a red stripe at the top and end with a white one, a standard flag is not hung vertically (only the banner form is), and on a car bonnet the blue canton faces forward.