^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Tajikistan

Todzhikiston

by António Martins-Tuválkin (after scan of Ummed Jaihoni)
Proportions: 1:2
Flag adopted 1992-NOV-24, coat of arms adopted 1993-DEC-28

Presentation of Tajikistan
State flag and construction sheet
Explanation of the flag
Coat of Arms
Tajikistan 1991-1992
Islamic Movement in Tajikistan
Aircraft marking
Badakhshan

See also:

Presentation of Tajikistan

Full name: Republic of Tajikistan
Location: Central Asia
Status: Internationally recognized independent state since 9 September 1991, a member of the UN and the CIS.
Notes: Tajikistan, formerly the Tadzhik SSR, was one of the last states to break with the collapsing USSR and also one of the last to hoist a post-Communist flag. Russian (and Communist) influence remains strong, largely due to the fact that the government needs Russian support in the sporadically continuing civil war against Islamic fundamentalists, who are mainly based in the south of the country.
Stuart Notholt, 25 November 1995

State flag and construction sheet

by Željko Heimer

From Tajikistan embassy in US http://www.tjus.org/State1.htm:
The state flag of the Republic of Tajikistan represents a right-angled panel consisting from three colored stripes located horizontal: the top stripe - red color and equal to it on width the bottom stripe of green color, the average white stripe, making one and a half width of dense stripes. On a white stripe, at the distance of half of length of a panel from a flagstaff, there is a stylized gold crown and a semicircle from seven stars above it. The attitude of the general width of a flag to length is 1:2. The crown and a star are entered in a rectangle, the sides of which on a vertical make 0,8 and across 1,0 width of a white stripe. Five-pointed stars are entered in a circle with diameter 0,15 and settle down on an arch radius of 0,5 width of a white stripe. There are three colors on a flag of the Republic of Tajikistan: green, red and white. A green stripe are valleys, they are not enough in republic - 7 % of territory. Because the rest of the territory is occupied by mountains. The white stripe is a color of the main richness of republic - cotton and also the color of snow and ice in high mountains. The red color is a color of unification of republic and brotherhood with other nations of the world.
Gvido Petersons, 22 April 2004

This accords with an official "Description of the State Emblem and Flag of the Republic of Tajikistan" which accompanied the Law of 24 November 1992 with the exception of the width of the white stripe.
Christopher Southworth, 22 April 2004

The album gives the stripe widths as 257+386+257:(900+900), which matches fairly well with the 1.5 description since 257*1.5=385.5
Željko Heimer, 22 April 2004

by Željko Heimer and António Martins-Tuválkin

Image of the flag with the crown errouneously taken from the armes, (while officially it is different when represented in the flag)

António Martins-Tuválkin, 28 April 2005

Explanation of flag

The flag of the Tadzhik SSR was, unsurprisingly, red, with two horizontal stripes of white over green. The white symbolized cotton production, the basis of Tajikistani agriculture, and the green was for other agricultural produce. The Tajikistan flag continues this tradition, being a red over white over green tricolour. On the white stripe is a golden crown surmounted by seven stars. (I do not know the significance of this emblem).
Stuart Notholt 25 November 1995

The colours are the same as the Iranian flag (albeit in reverse order), and the Tajiks are the only one of the former Soviet Central Asian nationalities who speak a Persian-related language than a Turkic one. Could this choice of colours be deliberate - and if so was the Tajik SSR flag similarly inspired? (I'd love to know how they got it past the Communists!)
Roy Stilling, 26 November 1995

I have found images of two versions of Tajik flag, differing only in small detail at the top of the crown. I have few pictures showing the top as oval, and few having the wings downwards. I am not sure which is right.
Željko Heimer 07 February 1996

Quoted from the Encyclopenia Americana article on flags (written by W. Smith) "The republic's flag was adopted in 1992 and the red, white and green stripes recall the flag of Iran, a nation which Tajikistan has close ethnic ties. The stylized crown and seven stars at the flags center represent Tajikistan's sovereignty, friendship between all nationalities, and the union of workers, peasants and the intellectual classes."

The above doesn't explain why they chose seven stars. Crowns are used by several European countires to represent sovereignty (Poland, Austria, etc.). The red, white green was also used in their republic flag before the fall of the USSR.
Nathan Augustine

There are seven districts in the country. Each star stands for one.
Sergey Petrov, 31 January 2003

Znamierowski further mentions that in the traditional Tajik culture, the magic number seven is a symbol of perfection and the emblem of happiness as the source of virtue. According to a Tajik legend, the paradise is made of seven beautiful orchards separated from each other by seven mountains, each of the mountains being a surmonted by a bright star. Red is the symbol of sun and victory; white represents purity, cotton and snow on the mountains and green symbolizes the spiritual meaning of Islam and generosity of the nature.
Ivan Sache, 1 February 2003

The Iranian peoples include Persians (who dominate what was once known as Persia, or Pars/Fars, and now known as Iran), as well as peoples such as the Kurds, Baloch and Tajik. In terms of language, though, Tajik is a classical version of Persian and shares immense similarities with Dari and Persian. Hence, perhaps the color choice was a nod towards their common Iranian heritage.
I believe Kurds use similar colors, in a similar tri-color format. The use of red, green and white is furthermore very common throughout the Muslim world, with blue being the mark of many Turkic peoples (though the Tajiks are the only post-Soviet Muslim state to be non-Turkic.)
Haroon Moghul, 30 June 2004

The word 'tojik', which is the root of the countries name 'Tojikiston' comes from the Persian word 'toj' meaning a 'crown'. Tojik, therefore, means the person that wears a crown. I am not a historian so I do not know too many details. However from what I have heard, the Tojik nation comes from a group of a very well-known warriors (at that time) that wore crowns. Hence, they were called 'Tojikon' (Tajiks in English).
Dorgabekova D., 18 July 2003

The word "Taj" does mean crown (and is used of a particular kind of fez), but I am unconvinced that this is the root of the word "Tajik." According to information posted at http://89.1911encyclopedia.org/T/TA/TAJIK.htm (almost certainly from the 1911 "Scholar's Edition" of the Encyclopaedia Britannica), the word means "Stranger" and applies to a population spread across Tajikistan and large parts of Afghanistan and into Uzbekistan and other parts of central Asia. They speak Persian (this is diagnostic) and ethnically are mostly Persian with some Arab and other ethnic influences mixed in.
John Ayer, 19 July 2003

Anyway, the explanation may also be a "post festum" one - this would not be so unusual either, but even such interpretation would be of interest to us.
Željko Heimer, 19 July 2003

Coat of Arms

after scan of Ummed Jaihoni

I have found two different COA in the past, one is sun ray and same symbol as national flag surrounded by wreath inside a lion another is similar COA without a lion.

Which one is used actually/formally?
Nozomi Kariyasu

The coat of arms with a lion was used from November 1992 till December 1993.
Nikolay A. Khimenkov, 15 March 1999

The date of adoption of "Law about State COA of Tajikistan Republic" is 28th December 1993.
Michael B. Simakov, 16 March 1999

Tajikistan 1991-1992

by Joan-Francés Blanc

Before the design of the new flag, Tajikistan used the former soviet colours without the communist symbols.
Joan-Francés Blanc 13 November 1996

Also, I seem to recall that for a while after independence, Tajikistan was still using the old Tajik SSR flag, complete with hammer & sickle. I remember that that flag was used in a 1993 almananac for the country. Does anyone know if that was ever officially recognized by the Dushanbe govt. as the flag of independent Tajikistan, or was it sort of a "default" flag, the govt. being too busy fighting various civil wars to officially make a new one? Did the Tajik hammer-and-sickle-and-green-stripe ever fly over, a Tajik embassy in another country, or at the U.N.?
Josh Fruhlinger 13 November 1996

Islamic Movement in Tajikistan

by Antonio Martins 30-OCT-2002

The Islamic Movement in Tadjikistan uses a white, light green and yellow horizontal flag (transcription of Emil Dreyer)
Jaume Ollé 06 November 1996

Aircraft marking

[cos98] show a "suggested" marking as green star bordered with white wnd thin red and charged with "Taj" in Arabic letters, and this one (with the red outline} appear at http://www.combataircraft.com/operators/ti.asp , but I suspect that it probably based on [cos98] and not on actual report....
Dov Gutterman, 25 June 2004

Badakhshan

Badakhshon (in farsi: Badakhshon) is officially part of Tajikistan but in fact it is autonomous region because of mountainous passes which are opened for a short time during a year. The inhabitants of Badakhshon are dozens of peoples of Dard group (like Kashmiri in India and some smaller ethnic groups in Afghanistan). All of them were called in Soviet era Pamiri Tajiks but Tajiks don't understand they languages at all. They are they are Ismaelites and in opposition to Sunni Tajiks. A lot of Tajik and Pamiri peoples warlords based here. They are in war with central Tajik communist government but not with local authorities. The only real authority for all of them is the spiritual leader of Ismaelites Aga-khan IV who use to visit the region and bring food and other humanitarian help for all inhabitants. I Just this year I saw on TV flag of one warlord - it was Tajik-like but with some text in farsi upon middle stripe. I can't read this language and had no time to copy it.
Sakajev Airat, 24 February 1997

Badakhshon is an autonomous region of the country but is ruled by the central government in Dushanbe (not by warlords). The inhabitants are, indeed, called Pamiris, which comes from the name of the Pamir Mountains (the highest mountains in the former Soviet Union). The language also comes from the Iranian groups of languages. However it is an Eastern Persian language as opposed to Farsi, which is a western Persian. Unfortunately, the attempts to create an official alphabet for the languages were unsuccessful. Therefore, it does not have a written form and is only spoken among the population of the region.
The religion in this part is Islam, however a different branch of Islam known as Ismaili Shiites. It impostant to note that this religion is not opposed to the Sunni religion (as put by Sakajev Airat) but always has and still is coexisting with the Sunni religion professed by the population of the other parts of Tajikistan. True, that during the war some opposition groups were based within the region, however it has never been 'at war' with the central government.
And the region does not have a separate flag that is different from the National flag.
Dorgabekova D., 18 July 2003