Sources
Sources and claims
Everything this site states rests on the register below. Sources carry a reliability rating; load-bearing claims carry a status: documented, interpretation, oral tradition or unproven. Where sources contradict each other, both sides are listed.
How we work
Every important claim is checked against at least two independent sources where possible. Texts that copy each other, and much of the web copies one single page about this flag, count as one source. Popular claims that fail verification are published as exactly that. Corrections are welcome and documented.
Plate I
Load-bearing claims and their status
| The flag is a 2:3 horizontal tricolour of red, white and green with a centred golden sun of exactly 21 equal rays, one ray pointing straight up. | documented |
| In the 1998-99 specification the sun including rays spans exactly half the flag's height; the disc alone spans a quarter. | documented |
| The specification gives Pantone values: red PMS 032C, yellow PMS 116C, green PMS 355C (one source notes PMS 354); the familiar web colors are the de facto values of the Wikimedia SVG. | documented |
| The design was first arranged in Istanbul around 1920 in the circle of the Society for the Advancement of Kurdistan; the earliest primary document is a 1928 letter with a drawing. | documented |
| The popular story that the flag was presented at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919-1920 is not supported by any archival evidence found. | unproven |
| Xoybûn adopted the flag in 1927 and it flew during the Ararat rebellion (1927-1930). | documented |
| The Mahabad republic's flag (1946) carried a different emblem: a sun flanked by ears of wheat and a pen; that emblem lives on in a party flag, not in the national flag. | documented |
| The dominant account says the flag was first officially raised in Mahabad on 17 December 1945; a variant links 17 December to the lowering at the republic's fall in 1946. | oral tradition |
| The Kurdistan National Assembly passed the flag law on 11 November 1999; it is commonly cited as Law No. 14 of 1999, though the number is reported inconsistently. | documented |
| Kurdistan Flag Day is 17 December, designated by Parliament Decision No. 48 of 19 June (2009 per most sources), commemorating Mahabad. | documented |
| The modern standardized specification was prepared in 1998-99 by Mehrdad R. Izady with Bijhan Eliasi and collaborators, in consultation with The Flag Institute (UK). | documented |
| Official reading: the 21 rays represent Newroz, the Kurdish New Year beginning 21 March. | interpretation |
| Designer's reading: 21 is a sacred number of rebirth in the native Yazdani traditions; Izady chose 21 rays to symbolize the rebirth of the Kurdish nation. | interpretation |
| A circulating folk explanation says the 21 rays stand for 21 letters of the Kurdish alphabet; this is unsupported (the Hawar alphabet has 31 letters). | unproven |
| Commonly given meanings: red for the blood of the martyrs and the struggle for freedom, white for peace and equality, green for the landscapes of Kurdistan, the golden sun as source of life and light of the people. The formal specification itself gives no color symbolism. | interpretation |
| The sun is a central holy symbol in Yezidism: Yezidis pray facing the sun and venerate a sun-angel, Şêx Şems. | documented |
| That the flag's sun descends directly from ancient sun veneration (Mithra, Zoroastrian tradition) is a widely repeated interpretation, not a documented design lineage. | interpretation |
| Izady deliberately avoided the regulation colors of the states governing parts of Kurdistan; the shades were based primarily on the Hungarian and Italian flags' regulation colors. | documented |
| The Flag Institute suggested a smaller sun with fewer rays; Izady kept 21 rays extending through all three bands. | documented |
| Because 21 is odd, the sun is often reproduced rotated; the correct orientation has the single uppermost ray pointing straight up. Even the de facto standard Wikimedia SVG needed a sun-geometry correction in 2020. | documented |
| The de facto web standard files are Wikimedia Commons' Flag_of_Kurdistan.svg (2006, corrected repeatedly) and Roj_emblem.svg (2015); both are public domain, and their colors are a Wikimedia choice rather than the specification's Pantone values. | documented |
| The national flag is distinct from party flags and colours; partisan recolouring of the national flag is publicly criticized within Kurdistan itself. | documented |
| Outside the Kurdistan Region, displaying the flag has been restricted or de facto criminalized in Bakur and Rojhilat, through anti-terror prosecutions and colour-conflation rather than any statute naming the flag. | interpretation |
| The flag is waved en masse at Newroz in Amed and at diaspora gatherings; Cologne hosts the largest Newroz in Europe, opening with the flag and Ey Reqîb. | documented |
| The Kurdistan Region team, a CONIFA member, hosted and won the 2012 VIVA World Cup in Hewlêr under the flag. | documented |
| The separate Presidency emblem, not the flag, has four longer rays for the four communities of the Region; the flag's sun has 21 equal rays. | documented |
| In Kurdish the flag is known as Ala Rengîn, the colourful flag, and the sun is called Roj. | documented |
| Before the sun tricolour became dominant, other Kurdish flags circulated, including a crescent flag of the Kingdom of Kurdistan in Silêmanî (1921-1924); surviving depictions are later reconstructions. | interpretation |
| Common incorrect presentations include partisan recolouring, wrong ray counts, rotated suns, and the Mahabad emblem flag shown as the current national flag. | documented |
| The Republic of Kurdistan at Mahabad, proclaimed 22 January 1946 by Qazî Mihemed on Çarçira Square while Ey Reqîb was sung, flew a Kurdish tricolour; the republic fell in mid-December 1946. | documented |
| Flag Day (17 December) is marked with ceremonies at schools and institutions, giant flags (1,300 m in Silêmanî; 132 m in Helebce), and observances in Rojava and the diaspora. | documented |
| From 14 July 1959 to 1963 the state flag of the republic governed from Baghdad contained a yellow sun explicitly representing the Kurds, an early state-level recognition of the sun as a Kurdish symbol. | documented |
Plate II
Source register
Last reviewed: 2026-08-05