Country profile: Syria

The green, white and black flag with three red stars was adopted in 1932, under the French Mandate, and became the flag of independent Syria in 1946. It was dropped in 1958 for the flag of the United Arab Republic, formed with Egypt, then used again from 1961 to 1963.

From 1963, and particularly under the Ba'ath Party regime, Syria used red, white and black flags; the one with two green stars was in force from 1980 to 2024. The flag with the three red stars was taken up by the opposition from 2011, during the civil war.

After the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December 2024, it was flown by the new authorities, then established as the national flag by the constitutional declaration of March 2025.

The elements of the Syrian flag are generally interpreted as follows:

• Green, white and black: according to a widespread reading, the colours of the great dynasties of Arab history, the Rashidun caliphs, the Umayyads and the Abbasids.
• Three red stars: originally, the three main territories of Syria under the Mandate, Damascus, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor; the red also evokes the blood shed.

Damascus, the capital of Syria, was in the 7th and 8th centuries the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, one of the largest empires in history.

The flag with the three red stars is sometimes called the ‘independence flag’, as it is the flag under which Syria gained independence in 1946.

The flag in force from 1980 to 2024, red, white and black with two green stars, was that of the United Arab Republic, the short-lived union formed with Egypt from 1958 to 1961.