Flag of Turkmenistan

How to read it

The Law on the State Flag of Turkmenistan was first adopted on 19 February 1992; its new edition of 24 January 2001 was approved by the Mejlis on 18 February 2001, and Store norske leksikon notes that the flag was then shortened from 1:2 to 2:3. The state news agency’s description: a green rectangle; on the red-maroon band, from top to bottom, the five main carpet guls, ahalteke, yomut, salyr, chowdur and ersary, each framed by carpet ornament whose outer edge meets the edge of the band; below them two olive branches crossing at their bases and pointing up and outwards, each of ten leaves; and in the upper corner of the green a white crescent and five white five-pointed stars. The state standard of 2000 calls the flag a symbol of the independence and neutrality of the state and the unity of the Turkmen people.

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The olive branches and neutrality

The United Nations proclaimed Turkmenistan’s permanent neutrality on 12 December 1995. To record it in the state symbols, the flag law was amended on 29 January 1997 and the olive branches, taken from the emblem of the UN, were added to the flag, the state news agency writes.

Five guls, five tribes

Each gul is a carpet pattern. The state news agency names the five, top to bottom, as ahalteke, yomut, salyr, chowdur and ersary. The encyclopedia Store norske leksikon gives the order as Teke, Yomut, Saryk, Chowdur and Arsary, with Saryk where the agency has Salyr, and says the band stands for the country’s carpet-making.

Two readings of the crescent and stars

The encyclopedia Store norske leksikon calls the white crescent a symbol of Islam and says the five stars stand for the five pillars of Islam and the country’s five regions. The state news agency gives another account: the crescent and star are among the oldest symbols of the Turkmen, and it cites the scholars Ya. I. Smirnov (1913) and Vilhelm Thomsen for the view that the Turkmen used the crescent before Islam. It adds that the colours and symbols were chosen from ancestral tradition, without political or religious motives.

Telling it from Pakistan’s flag

Pakistan’s flag is also dark green with a white crescent, but it has a single five-pointed star and a narrower white band by the pole, Store norske leksikon describes. Turkmenistan’s band by the pole is red, patterned with carpet guls, and it has five stars.