🇹🇷 The colours of Turkey
7 meanings recorded, 11 colours tied to the country and 3 colour cities.
Turkey’s flag features a bright red field with a white crescent and star. The red stands for the nation and its history, while the white symbols are linked to the Ottoman era. The exact shade of red and the flag’s proportions are set by law.
Where no official value is given, the swatch shows the colour family, not the exact shade.
- The flag’s red is legally standardised.
- The crescent and star design dates to the Ottoman Empire.
- The flag is called 'the red flag' in Turkish.
- Displayed on all state buildings and uniforms.
- Used at state and military funerals.
The colours of the flag of Turkey
Turkey’s flag is made up of a red background with a white crescent and star. The red is a national symbol, often called 'the red flag' or 'the red banner' in Turkish. The crescent and star, both white, come from the Ottoman Empire’s flag, first used in the 19th century. The meanings are rooted in history and tradition, with red representing the country and its people, while the white crescent and star recall the Ottoman past. These meanings are widely recognised and are part of official and popular understanding.
How the colours were chosen of Turkey
The red flag with a white crescent and star was first used by the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. After Turkey became a republic in 1923, it kept the last Ottoman flag as its own. The design’s proportions and the shade of red were formally set by law in 1936. Since then, the flag’s appearance has remained unchanged, with legal regulations ensuring its consistency.
Official shades and rules of Turkey
The Turkish Flag Law of 1936 set the flag’s proportions and the exact tone of red, though the specific colour code is not given here. Further regulations in 1937 and 1939 detailed how to apply the law. The law also describes the precise geometry of the crescent and star, including their placement and size.
The facts in this overview come from the Wikipedia article "Flag of Turkey", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Rang rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
What colours mean in Turkey
Customs vary by region, faith and family; these are the meanings most often recorded.
The flag is red with a white crescent and star, and is called al bayrak, the red flag. It comes down from the late Ottoman flag.
Politics and protestPrideSource: Flag of TurkeyTurkey red was a bright, fast red for cotton, made from madder root by a long process worked out around Edirne. European dyers spent much of the 1700s trying to copy it.
Nature and renewalSource: Turkey redParty colours are plain in Turkish elections: the governing AK Party uses orange with a light bulb, and the Republican People's Party uses red with six arrows.
Politics and protestSource: Justice and Development PartyGreen is linked with Islam and with holy men. Tombs of saints are draped in green cloth, and the Green Mosque and Green Tomb in Bursa are named for their tiles.
Sacred and holySource: Green Mosque, BursaThe English word turquoise comes from the French for Turkish, because the stone reached Europe through Ottoman lands. Tiles from Iznik made the colour a mark of Ottoman mosques.
Royalty and powerSource: TurquoiseThe nazar boncugu is a blue glass bead with a white and dark blue eye. It hangs on doors, cars and babies' clothes to turn away the evil eye.
Protection and healingTrustSource: Nazar (amulet)The Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul is known as the Blue Mosque. The name comes from the thousands of Iznik tiles and painted patterns, mostly blue, that cover the inside.
Sacred and holyAweSource: Blue Mosque, IstanbulColour and feeling in Turkey
A blue glass bead painted as an eye, the nazar, is hung in homes, cars and on children's clothes to turn harm away.
A blue glass eye, the nazar or mati, is worn and hung in homes to deflect the harm that an envious look is believed to cause.
A cause of shame is yüz karası, 'blackness of the face', and a person with a clear conscience has a white face and an open brow.
Colour cities of Turkey
🇹🇷 Istanbul's painted old quarterBalatSteep cobbled lanes on the Golden Horn lined with narrow bay-windowed houses in red, yellow, blue and green.
🇹🇷 The saffron townSafranboluAn Ottoman town named after saffron, with white timber-framed houses under red tiled roofs.
🇹🇷 The cotton castlePamukkaleA hillside of white mineral terraces holding pale blue pools, formed by hot springs in western Turkey.Colours tied to Turkey
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Armenian cochineal: Vahe Martirosyan, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Scarlet: Daderot, Public domain, source
- Balat Tr: Antoloji, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Safranbolu Tr: Uğur Başak, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Pamukkale Tr: Biologg, CC BY-SA 4.0, source