Flag of Kuwait

What the flag of Kuwait looks like

The flag of Kuwait is made of three horizontal bands of equal height: green on top, white in the middle and red at the bottom. A black trapezoid sits at the hoist (the side nearest the flagpole). Its long side runs along the full height of the flag at the hoist, and its short side is as tall as the white band, so the sloping edges run from the corners of the flag to the corners of the white band. The proportions are 1:2.

The flag carries no emblem or writing. Because it uses the same four colors as several other Arab flags, it is identified mainly by the shape of the black trapezoid. A Kuwait flag emoji and a downloadable version are available on this site.

Kuwait flag meaning and symbolism

The colors are explained by a verse attributed to the 14th-century poet Safi al-Din al-Hilli: white are our deeds, black our battles, green our fields, and red our swords. In the usual reading, white stands for purity and good deeds, black for the battles in which enemies were defeated, green for the land and its fertility, and red for the blood on the swords of Kuwait's fighters.

The same four colors are known as the Pan-Arab colors. They come from the flag of the Arab Revolt of 1916 and are used, in different arrangements, by Jordan, Palestine, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and others. The black trapezoid is the feature that sets the Kuwaiti design apart. It is not given a separate official meaning.

History of the Kuwait flag

Kuwait was ruled by the Al-Sabah family from the 18th century and was a British protectorate from 1899 until 1961. Earlier flags of the sheikhdom were mainly red, and some carried the word Kuwait in Arabic script.

The current flag was adopted in 1961, the year Kuwait became fully independent (19 June 1961), and its design has not changed since. It replaced the red flags of the protectorate era with the four Pan-Arab colors.

Kuwait marks National Day on 25 February and Liberation Day on 26 February, the latter recalling the end of the Iraqi occupation of 1990-91. The flag is flown widely on both days.

Kuwait flag compared with similar flags

Several flags in the region share some of the Kuwaiti colors. The flag of the United Arab Emirates has a vertical red bar at the hoist instead of a black trapezoid and has green, white and black bands. The flag of Palestine has black, white and green bands with a red triangle. The flag of Jordan has black, white and green bands with a red triangle, plus a white seven-pointed star. Kuwait is the only one of these with a black trapezoid.