Flag of Northern Cyprus
The flag of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is the national flag of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and which is based on the flag of Turkey, with the colors reversed and two additional horizontal red stripes at the top and bottom. The flag was drawn by the Turkish Cypriot artist Emin Çizenel. It was adopted in 1984 by Northern Cyprus, a self-declared state that is recognized only by Turkey, after its unilateral declaration of independence in 1983.
Although there is no official statement on the meaning of the flag, it can be interpreted as the star and crescent meaning Turkishness, the red color representing the blood of the Turkish Cypriots, and the stripes indicating Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Before the current flag, the flag of Turkey was used.
The country's flag is officially determined by its law, and it has several other laws that specify where and when the flag should be flown and also laws against insulting or burning of the flag. It can also be flown at half-mast, commonly to commemorate Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founding father and first President of Turkey, but also in case if the premiership issues an order to do so. Several of these laws also apply to the flag of Turkey, which has official status in the country.
On the side of Beşparmaklar Mountain, in the Kyrenia Mountains, there is a wide flag of Northern Cyprus along with a star and crescent and the quotation How happy is the one who says I am a Turk.
Design and symbolism
The flag of Northern Cyprus was defined in Article 2 of the Flag Law of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus under these terms: "The flag of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has, under the conditions defined by law, a red star and crescent on a white background and two longitudinal lines".There aren't any official statements about the meaning of the flag. An interpretation is that the star and crescent represent Turkishness, red representing the blood of Turkish Cypriots killed in Cypriot intercommunal violence, white representing peace, the upper line representing Turkey, the bottom line representing Northern Cyprus and the horizontality of the lines represents that "The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus will last forever".
In 2019, the flag became the subject of a conspiracy theory falsely claiming it was designed by Necmettin Erbakan and that the upper line represents the Nile, and the bottom one represents the Euphrates while the star and crescent mean the "land between the Nile and the Euphrates will not be for Zionists as long as Turkey exists". The theory was based on allegations claiming two blue stripes on the flag of Israel represent the Nile and Euphrates rivers and allege that Israel desires to eventually seize all the land in between.
Dimensions
| Letter | Measure | Length |
| G | Width | 1 G |
| A | Distance of the centre of the external circle of the crescent from the heading | G |
| B | Diameter of the external circle of the crescent | G |
| C | Distance between the internal and external centres of the crescent | G |
| D | Diameter of the internal circle of the crescent | G |
| E | Distance between the star's circle and the internal circle of the crescent | G |
| F | Diameter of the star's circle | G |
| L | Length | G |
| M | Width of the heading | G |
| N | Width of red stripes | G |
| O | Width of white stripes | G |
Note that the proportions are, except for the added stripes, exactly the same that the Turkish national flag, presumably on purpose.
Color scheme
Colour scheme | Red | White |
| RGB | 227-10-23 | 255-255-255 |
| Hexadecimal | #E30A17 | #FFFFFF |
| CMYK | 0, 96, 90, 11 | 0, 0, 0, 0 |
History
Previous flags
The Turkish Federated State of Cyprus was formed on 13 February 1975 and existed until 15 October 1983, when the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was established. TFSC didn't mention a flag in its constitution.3 days after the declaration of independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a self-declared state that is recognized only by Turkey, on 18 November 1983, the Council of Ministers of Northern Cyprus discussed the flag of the new state. It was decided to use the flag of Cyprus with the flag of Turkey placed in the canton. However, the design was never used. According to an article in the Flag Bulletin, for the first four months of its existence, the flag of Turkey was used as the official flag of Northern Cyprus.
Current flag
On 23 November 1983, the government officially called for a new flag for the country and asked for flag suggestions from all citizens, establishments and foundations being 3 December 1983 the deadline. The design drawn by Turkish Cypriot artist Emin Çizenel was accepted and it was officially adopted as the flag of Northern Cyprus on 7 March 1984 by Law No.15 of constitution of Northern Cyprus. Flag Law of Northern Cyprus was adopted the same day. The Official Gazette published the flag on 9 March 1984. Even though there wasn't a promised prize, on 9 March 1984 Emin Çizenel received the award of TL100,000, which was the same amount given to Mehmet Akif Ersoy for writing İstiklal Marşı in 1921.Proposed national flag
The Annan Plan was a United Nations proposal to restructure the Republic of Cyprus as a federation of two states under the name of "United Republic of Cyprus" to settle the Cyprus dispute. A Spanish fess flag made up of three white fimbriated blue, red and orange-yellow lines were chosen for the federation by a committee of Greek and Turkish Cypriots in early March 2004. The current flag of Northern Cyprus was planned to be used as the flag for the Turkish Cypriot State of the federation.The blue stripe represented Greeks while the red stripe represented Turks, two major ethnic groups in Cyprus and the orange-yellow stripe represented copper, from which the island may have received its name. The meaning of white fimbriation wasn't officially stated but an interpretation is that it represented peace between the two communities.
In a 2004 Cypriot [Annan Plan referendums|2004 referendum], the plan was accepted by 65% of Turkish Cypriots but 76% of Greek Cypriots opposed it, therefore the plan was not put into place.