The national flag of Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

(Bengali

Bengali language

Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

: বাংলাদেশের জাতীয় পতাকা, Bānlādēśēra jātīẏa patākā) was adopted officially on 17 January 1972. It is based on a similar flag used during the Bangladesh Liberation War

Bangladesh Liberation War

The Bangladesh Liberation War was an armed conflict pitting East Pakistan and India against West Pakistan. The war resulted in the secession of East Pakistan, which became the independent nation of Bangladesh....

 of 1971. The map was later deleted from the flag by the order of General Abul Manzur, most likely to simplify the design. A red disc is on top of the green field, offset slightly toward the hoist so that it appears centred when the flag is flying. The red disc represents the sun rising over Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

, and also the blood of those who died for the independence of Bangladesh. The green field stands for the lushness of the land of Bangladesh.

The civil ensign

Civil ensign

The civil ensign is the national flag flown by civil ships to denote nationality...

 and naval ensign place the national flag in the canton

Flag terminology

Flag terminology is a jargon used in vexillology, the study of flags, to describe precisely the parts, patterns, and other attributes of flags and their display.-Description of standard flag parts and terms:...

 of a red or white field, respectively.

Origin

The original flag was designed by Student Leaders of Shawdhin Bangla Nucleus  painter was Shib Narayan Das (not Quamrul Hassan

Quamrul Hassan

Quamrul Hassan was a Bangladeshi artist. Hassan was born in Kolkata, India. In Bangladesh, Hassan's fame as an artist is perhaps only second to that of Zainul Abedin. Hassan is often referred to in Bangladesh as Potua, a word usually associated with folk artists, due to his down to earth style...

) & was made from clothes donated by owner of Apollo Tailors Bazlur Rahman Lasker at Dhaka New Market. On 2 March 1971, the initial version of the flag was hoisted in Bangladesh for the first time at the Dhaka University

University of Dhaka

The University of Dhaka is the oldest university in Bangladesh. It is a multi-disciplinary research university and is among the top universities in the region. Established on July 21, 1921, as per the Government of India Act, 1920, it was modelled on the Universities in England and soon gained...

. As the Vice President of Dhaka University Students' Union (DUCSU), student leader A. S. M. Abdur Rab hoisted the flag. On the declaration of Independence on 26 March 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman flew the flag in his residence.

The flag was conceived so as to exclude the crescent

Crescent

In art and symbolism, a crescent is generally the shape produced when a circular disk has a segment of another circle removed from its edge, so that what remains is a shape enclosed by two circular arcs of different diameters which intersect at two points .In astronomy, a crescent...

 and the star considered as symbols of West Pakistan

West Pakistan

West Pakistan , common name West-Pakistan , in the period between its establishment on 22 November 1955 to disintegration on December 16, 1971. This period, during which, Pakistan was divided, ended when East-Pakistan was disintegrated and succeeded to become which is now what is known as Bangladesh...

. According to Flags of the World

Flags of the World

Flags of the World is an Internet-based vexillological association and resource. Its principal project is the Internet's largest website devoted to vexillology, containing comprehensive information about all kinds of flags, and an associated mailing list...

, the green used in the flag does not represent the traditional colours of Islam, contrary to some western sources (such as the CIA World Fact Book). Rather, the green colour was chosen to represent the lushness of the natural landscape of Bangladesh. The current flag resembles the flag of Japan

Flag of Japan

The national flag of Japan is a white rectangular flag with a large red disk in the center. This flag is officially called in Japanese, but is more commonly known as ....

 with the background a different colour and an offset sun.

The map was removed from the flag in 1972. One reason given was the difficulty rendering the map correctly on both sides of the flag.

Official specifications

According to Bangladeshi government specifications, following is the specification of the national flag:

• The flag will be in bottle green and rectangular in size in the proportion of 10:6, with a red circle in near middle.
• The red circle will have a radius of one-fifth of the length of the flag. Its centre will be placed on the intersecting point of the perpendicular drawn from the nine-twentieth part of the length of the flag, and the horizontal line drawn through the middle of its width.
• The green base of the flag will be of Procion
  Procion
  Procion is a brand of fibre reactive dyes.Procion MX are a class of cold reactive dyes . They are commonly used in tie dye and other textile crafts. They are dichlorotriazine dyes and were originally made by ICI...
  
   Brilliant Green H-2RS 50 parts per 1000. The red circular part will be of Procion Brilliant Orange H-2RS 60 parts per 1000.
• Depending on the size of the building the flag sizes will be 10 foot; 5 foot; 2.5 by 1.5 ft (762 by 457.2 mm). The size of the flag for car is 12.5 inch, and the size of the table flag for bilateral conferences is 10 inch.

Colour

(a) The green base of the flag will be of Procion Brilliant Green H-2RS 50 parts per 1000.
(b) The red circular part will be of Procion Brilliant Orange H-2RS 60 parts per 1000.

External links

• Entry on National Flag, Banglapedia
  Banglapedia
  Banglapedia, or the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh, is the first Bangladeshi encyclopedia. It is available in print, CD-ROM format and online, in both Bangla and English. The print version comprises ten 500-page volumes...
  
  .