flag, a piece of cloth, bunting, or similar material displaying the insignia of a community, an armed force, an office, or an individual. A flag is usually, but not always, oblong and is attached by one edge to a staff or halyard. The part nearest the staff is called the hoist; the outer part is called the fly. A flag’s length (also called the fly) usually exceeds its width (hoist). Flags of various forms and purpose are known as colours, standards, banners, ensigns, pendants (or pennants), pennons, guidons, and burgees.

Originally used mainly in warfare, flags were, and to some extent remain, insignia of leadership, serving for the identification of friend or foe and as rallying points. They are now also extensively employed for signaling, for decoration, and for display. Because the usefulness of a flag for purposes of identification depends on its blowing out freely in the wind, the material that is preferred is usually light and bears a device or pattern identical on both sides. Wording therefore tends to be excluded, and the simpler patterns are favoured. Any colours or devices may be used, but European usage normally follows the practice of heraldry in discouraging the juxtaposition of “metal” and “metal” (i.e., of yellow and white) or of colour and colour without “metal” interposed. The flag of the Vatican City state constitutes an exception to this rule.


Flags recognizable as such were the invention, almost certainly, of the ancient Indians or the Chinese. It is said that the founder of the Chou dynasty in China (c. 1122 bc) had a white flag carried before him, and it is known that in ad 660 a minor prince was punished for failing to lower his standard before his superior. Chinese flags had devices such as a red bird, a white tiger, or a blue dragon. They were carried on chariots and planted upon the walls of captured cities. The royal flag had, however, all the attributes of kingship, being identified with the ruler himself and treated with a similar respect. It was thus a crime even to touch the flag-bearer. The fall of the flag meant defeat; and the king would rarely expose his flag and his person together, the flag being normally entrusted to a general.

Flags had equal importance in ancient India, being carried on chariots and elephants. The flag was the first object of attack in battle, and its fall would mean confusion if not defeat. Indian flags were often triangular in shape and scarlet or green in colour, with a figure embroidered in gold and a gold fringe. If these and the Chinese flags had a common origin in the standards of ancient Egypt and Assyria (standards, in this sense, meaning solid objects, such as metal animals, attached atop poles), then they might have developed from the streamers often attached to the pole. This possibility gains some likelihood from the fact that some Indian flagstaffs were surmounted by a figure similar to that displayed on the flag itself. Mughal royal insignia included, however, other things besides the flag, more especially yaks’ tails and the state umbrella. Flags seem also to have been used, in India as in China, for signaling, and there is an instance of a white flag being used as a signal for a truce as early as ad 1542. Indian and Chinese usage spread to Burma, Siam, and southeastern Asia. Flags with a background of white, yellow, or black silk are mentioned, with devices (an elephant, a bull, or a water hen, for example) embroidered on them in gold. A Siamese treatise on war gives the impression that the flags were unfurled as the march began.

Flags were probably transmitted to Europe by the Saracens. But Islām’s prohibition of the use of any identifiable image as idolatrous influenced their design. They are often mentioned in the early history of Islām and may have been copied from India. But Islāmic flags are greatly simplified and appear to have been plain black or white or red. Black was supposed to have been the colour of Muḥammad’s banner—the colour of vengeance. A black flag was used by the ʿAbbāsids in ad 746 (ah 129), the Umayyads choosing white by contrast and the Khawārij red. Green was the colour of the Fāṭimid dynasty and eventually became the colour of Islām. In adopting the crescent sign, however, about 1250, the Ottoman Turks apparently were reverting to an Assyrian sacred symbol of the 9th century bc and probably of greater antiquity than that. The crescent moon, with or without an additional star or stars, has since become the accepted official symbol of Islām.

In Europe the first “national” flags were adopted in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Many of the leaders of that time adopted the flag of their patron saint to represent their country. In England, for example, the cross of St. George was adopted in the 13th century. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, flags had become accepted symbols of nations, kings, organizations, cities, and guilds. Guild flags bore obvious devices. For instance, a black flag with three white candles represented the candlemakers of Bayeux, Fr.

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