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Flag of Ankara

A mosque, a tower and a crescent on white: the emblem of Ankara changed in 1995 and has been in court ever since.

Flag of Ankara
Coat of arms
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The flag, in figures

Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.

Proportions
2:33 wide for every 2 high. 989 flags in the catalogue share it.
Properties
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
Use
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.
Adopted
201125 July 2011 · 15 years ago
Colours
  • white
  • blue
  • light blue
Reference shades: the official one may vary slightly.
Coat of arms
YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.

Take a closer look

  • Field

  • Emblem

  • Stars

  • Variant

How it is described

The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.

Vexillological description

It is a white field (the cloth) with a 2:3 ratio with the emblem of the Metropolitan Municipality in the centre.

Field
white, with no stripes or borders.
Emblem
a dark blue shield with the word ANKARA above it, in blue letters. Inside, two white minarets that curve downwards to form a crescent; between them, a mosque dome and the Atakule tower in light blue, and a white star inside the crescent.
Stars
five small white stars above the dome. The 1995 version, the one in the image, had three.
Variant
sometimes the text BÜYÜKŞEHİR BELEDİYESİ (metropolitan municipality) in blue is added below.

What it carries

Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.

Its history in dates

Every date in its story, at a glance.

  1. 1973

    In 1973 the mayor Vedat Dalokay chose as the symbol of the city the Hittite sun disc

  2. 1978

    In 1978 a large statue of the disc was erected in Sıhhiye Square

  3. 1995

    In 1995 the mayor Melih Gökçek replaced it with a new drawing: the Kocatepe mosque

  4. 2011

    On 25 July 2011 the city council raises the stars from three to five

The full story

How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.

The flag of Ankara, the capital of Turkey, is white and carries in its centre the emblem of the city council: a mosque, a tower and a crescent inside a blue shield. It looks like a calm flag, but its emblem has been in court for almost thirty years.

How it came about

In 1973 the mayor Vedat Dalokay chose as the symbol of the city the Hittite sun disc, a bronze piece more than 4,000 years old found at Alacahöyük, near Ankara. In 1978 a large statue of the disc was erected in Sıhhiye Square.

In 1995 the mayor Melih Gökçek replaced it with a new drawing: the Kocatepe mosque, the Atakule tower and the crescent with stars. Many residents protested: for them the Hittite disc told the history of the city better. Since then the flag of the city is white with this emblem.

How it has changed

The white field has not changed; the emblem has, a little.

  1. 1973-1995

    The city council uses the Hittite sun disc as emblem.

  2. Ankara flag from 1995: white with the blue shield of the mosque, the Atakule tower and three stars

    1995-2011

    The emblem of the mosque and the tower arrives, with three small stars.

  3. 2011

    On 25 July 2011 the city council raises the stars from three to five. It is the emblem used today.

What it means

  • Mosque and minarets

    the dome is that of the Kocatepe mosque, one of the largest in the city.

  • Tower

    Atakule, Ankara’s observation tower, 125 metres high.

  • Crescent and stars

    the same ones as on the flag of Turkey.

  • White and blue

    the colours of the municipal emblem.

Fun facts

  1. The governor threatened to seize it

    According to Agence France-Presse, on 4 July 1995 the governor of Ankara announced that he would confiscate every flag carrying the new emblem if anyone flew it.

  2. A judge said it did not represent Ankara

    An administrative court annulled the 1995 emblem because its symbols did not show the history or the culture of the city. The city council appealed, lost, and went on using it.

  3. A smiling cat as logo

    In 2010 the mayor Gökçek presented as a logo a smiling Angora cat with three whiskers. The courts annulled that too, and in 2013 he removed one whisker.

  4. Two thirds are needed to change it

    In 2024 the mayor Mansur Yavaş proposed choosing a new emblem through a competition, but the change needs two thirds of the municipal council, and his party does not have them.

Location

How much have you learnt?

Test what you have read about the flag of Ankara.

  1. 1. Which one is the flag of Ankara?

  2. 2. Which of these elements appears on the flag?

  3. 3. What are the proportions (height:width) of the flag?

  4. 4. In which year was the current flag adopted?

Sources

Text based on the article “Ankara (Metropolitan Municipality, Turkey) — Flags of the World” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sources consulted:

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