Flag of Egypt

What the Egyptian flag looks like

The Egyptian flag has three horizontal bands of equal size: red at the top, white in the middle and black at the bottom. The proportions are 2:3. In the center of the white band stands the national emblem, the Eagle of Saladin, drawn in gold.

The eagle faces the hoist and carries a shield on its chest, which is striped in the colors of the flag. Its talons rest on a golden scroll bearing the name of the country in Arabic, Jumhuriyat Misr al-Arabiyya (Arab Republic of Egypt), written in Kufic script. The emblem is the same one used on the coat of arms, so the flag and the state seal share one visual identity.

Because the three stripes are not unique, the plain tricolor is easy to mix up with other flags. Yemen uses exactly the same red, white and black stripes without any emblem. Iraq has the same stripes too, with the Arabic words Allahu Akbar in green in the white band. Egypt's flag is the one with the eagle. You can also see how it appears on screens as the Egypt flag emoji.

Egypt flag meaning and symbolism

The colors come from the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and the Pan-Arab movement that followed it. The most common reading is that red stands for the struggle against the British occupation and the monarchy, and for the blood shed during that struggle. White is said to stand for a bright future, and for the fact that the 1952 revolution was largely bloodless. Black represents the end of oppression and the dark period of colonial rule. These readings are traditional rather than set by law, and other explanations are also given, for example red for the courage of the army or for the sun.

The golden Eagle of Saladin is named after Salah ad-Din (Saladin), the 12th-century sultan who founded the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt and defeated the Crusaders at Hattin. The eagle was not used by Saladin himself, but became a symbol of Arab pride and strength in the 20th century. The shield on its chest repeats the flag's colors, and the scroll below carries the name of the state.

People often ask why there is an eagle on the Egyptian flag. It marks the republic's link to Arab history and power, and is a reminder of a medieval ruler from Cairo. The eagle replaced the stars and crescents of earlier flags with a symbol that is not tied to a religion or a dynasty.

History of the Egyptian flag

Ancient Egypt did not have a national flag in the modern sense. Armies and temple processions carried standards, which were emblems on tall poles, often showing a god, an animal or the symbol of a province. These are sometimes shown as the "ancient Egypt flag", but nothing like a single flag for the whole country existed.

In the 19th century, under Muhammad Ali and his dynasty, Egypt used red flags with white crescents and stars, similar to the Ottoman banner. After the country became a kingdom in 1922, the flag became green with a white crescent and three white stars, which was used until 1952.

The revolution of 1952, led by the Free Officers, ended the monarchy. The republic first flew the Liberation Flag, a red, white and black tricolor with a golden eagle in the center. From 1958 to 1961, when Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic, the flag carried two green five-pointed stars in the white band. Egypt kept this version until 1971.

In 1972 Egypt joined the short-lived Federation of Arab Republics with Syria and Libya and its flag bore a gold hawk of Quraish, with the name of the federation on a scroll. The federation fell apart in the late 1970s, but Egypt kept the hawk flag until it adopted the current flag on 4 October 1984, returning to the eagle of Saladin. The flag was formally confirmed in the years that followed.

Flags similar to the Egyptian flag

Syria used a red, white and black tricolor with two green stars for decades, and Yemen, Iraq and Sudan all share the same Pan-Arab palette in different arrangements. This is because the red-white-black-green scheme was spread by the Arab Liberation movement after 1952 and used by many states that followed it. Egypt is the only one with the Eagle of Saladin.