Bangladesh

People's Republic of Bangladesh, Gana Prajatantri Bangladesh

Last modified: 2002-07-13 by jonathan dixon
Keywords: bangladesh | asia | ensign | malatee | crescent: blue |
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by Zeljko Heimer
Flag adopted 13 January 1972, coat of arms adopted February 1971.

• Civil and State Flag
• Civil Ensign
• Naval Flags
• Air Force
• 1971 Flag
• Construction Sheet for National Flag
• Presidential Flag
• Malatee

• British India
• Bengal (British India)
• Pakistan
• Chittagong Hill Tracts

The red circle should actually be shifted towards the hoist since 1972. The previous flag (1971-1972) had a centered red disc with a yellow map silhouette of Bangladesh.
Jan Zrzavy, 26 August 1997

The national flag is bottle green in color and rectangular in size with the length to width ratio of 10:6 bearing a red circle on the body of the green. The red circle has a radius of one fifth of the length of the flag. Its center is placed on the middle of the perpendicular drawn from the nine twentieth part of the flag. The background colour symbolizes the greenery of Bangladesh with its vitality and youthfulness while the red disc represents the rising sun and the sacrifice our people made to obtain our independence.
      Prescribed sizes of the flag for buildings are 305cm x 183cm, 152cm x 91cm and 76cm x 46cm and for vehicles are 38cm x 23cm and 25cm x 15cm.
Collected from http://www.virtualbangladesh.com/bd_flag.html by Dov Gutterman, 23 December 1998.

(See also the Construction Sheet)

The approximate colour shades are:
Green: CMYK 100-0-70-40, Pantone 342c
Red: CMYK 0-100-80-5, no Pantone given.
Santiago Dotor, 26 February 2001

by Zeljko Heimer

Red, with the national flag in canton.
Jan Zrzavy, 16 January 1998

by Jorge Candeias, 29 May 1999

The first flag of Bangladesh. I don't know what the official proportions were, but I have used 2:3 as it seems reasonable to assume that the Pakistani practice would have continued for a while. Someone quoted Whitney Smith as saying that the map was omitted because of the difficulty involved in displaying it correctly on both sides. I have some doubts about this explanation: Cyprus has overcome the problem of a two-sided flag, as has Saudi Arabia. Another explanation suggests itself: namely, that the map may have been an unpleasant reminder of the partition of Bengal.
Vincent Morley, 1 September 1997

The first flag of the independence movement. The flag initially had the the map of Bangladesh in gold in the center of the red circle. This was the original design of the flag of Bangladesh that the valiant freedom fighters founght under during the liberation war. On the 3rd March 1971, ASM Abdur Rab, the then VP of Dhaka University Students´ Union hoisted the flag for the first time at the historic Dhaka University location known as "bawt-tawla". This flag was also raised at the then Dhaka Race Course at then Ramna Racecourse (now Shuhrawardy Uddayan) when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave his historic speech proclaiming "this struggle is the struggle for liberation."
      (The "bawt-tawla" incidently means the shade of the banyan tree in Bengali. This was, and still is, a popular meeting place for activist students of the University of Dhaka.)
Collected from http://www.virtualbangladesh.com/bd_flag.html by Dov Gutterman, 23 December 1998.

Reverse of 1971 Flag

by Jorge Candeias, 29 May 1999

I believe the map ought to be correct on both sides. Pedersen refers to the difficulty of rendering the map correct on both sides of the flag leading to dropping the map.
Ole Andersen, 25 May 1999

From an old Japanese plate dated 1876. I can't identify this country (Malatee). It is probably related with Bengala (flag of the nawab of Bengala?)
Jaume Ollé, 17 Jan 2000