Family research · Phase 7 of the world atlas · the Levant

Flags of Lebanon

From the ancient Phoenician port cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos — whose cedar-covered mountains gave this land the symbol still at the center of its flag today — through Crusader Tripoli, four Ottoman centuries with a distinctive stretch of local autonomy, a French Mandate, and the 1943 flag that has flown unchanged through independence and civil war alike.

This region's most recent history includes genuinely contested, once-active conflict. Where the record below reaches the 20th century, it sticks to dates, names, and documents, describing Lebanon's confessional political system and its 1975–1990 civil war factually and neutrally rather than taking any side.

Scope of this page: the lands of present-day Lebanon, antiquity–present, seven political entities. Part of a larger atlas — see the map and linked pages at the bottom.

One border, seven rulers

Lebanon's own real border, traced whole — this page has no internal split to show honestly. Press play, or drag the slider, to watch who held all of it, era to era.

Mount Lebanon's autonomy, and the 1975–90 civil war's factional lines, both stopped short of a clean two-region split. Ottoman-era Mount Lebanon governed itself under local emirs while remaining, on paper, part of the same Ottoman Syria as the coast around it — a real but informal distinction, not a separately flagged territory. The civil war fractured the country among many armed factions and shifting front lines rather than two stable, differently-governed halves. What changes here is only who held all of Lebanon's present-day territory at once.

antiquity

Ancient Phoenicia through early Islamic rule

Real traced border (Natural Earth 50m via ADM0_A3=LBN), no internal partition — see the rule box above for why. Neighbor labels are approximate.

red-white-red with the green cedar, unchanged since 1943

1943 – present

Republic of Lebanon

Republic, independentBechara El KhouryNo single state religion (multi-confessional power-sharing)

Migration & conquest:Immigration: Palestinian refugees (1948–)Immigration: Syrian refugees (2011–)Emigration: repeated waves amid war & crisis

Who & why: Lebanon's parliament declared independence on 22 November 1943, still marked as its national day; the last French troops withdrew in December 1946. Governance since rests on the unwritten 1943 National Pact, a confessional power-sharing system distributing the country's top offices — the presidency, premiership, and speakership of parliament — among specific religious communities, a real and distinctive feature that remains in operation today. A civil war lasted from 1975 to 1990, formally ended by the 1989 Taif Agreement, which adjusted but did not abolish the confessional system.

What it represents: two red horizontal bands framing a wider white band bearing a green cedar tree (Cedrus libani), adopted at independence in 1943 and unchanged since.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3; red bands each one-quarter height, white band one-half.

LayoutRed, white (double height), red horizontal bands; green cedar tree centered in the white band.

Red#EE161F

White#F4EFE1

Cedar green#00A651

French tricolor, with the State of Greater Lebanon's own cedar flag flown alongside

1920 – 1943

French Mandate

MandateHenri GouraudNo official state religion (multiple communities recognized)

Migration & conquest:Immigration: Armenian genocide refugees (1920s)

Who & why: the April 1920 San Remo Conference assigned France a League of Nations Mandate over Syria and Lebanon. French High Commissioner General Henri Gouraud proclaimed the State of Greater Lebanon on 1 September 1920, enlarging Mount Lebanon's autonomous territory to its present-day borders by adding Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and other coastal and southern districts. The Mandate continued until the 1943 independence declaration and the phased French withdrawal that followed.

What it represents: the French tricolor flew as the mandatory power's flag; the State of Greater Lebanon flew its own flag — the French tricolor with a cedar tree added in the white band — representing local administration under the Mandate.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3, three equal vertical bands with the cedar added to the white band on the local variant.

LayoutBlue, white, red vertical bands; green cedar centered on the white band.

Blue#0B3D7A

Cedar green#00A651

Ottoman state flag, flown over an internationally-guaranteed autonomous district

1861 – 1918

Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon (autonomous)

Autonomous provinceDavud PashaSunni Islam (Ottoman state religion)

Migration & conquest:Emigration: to the Americas & beyond (1880s–)Emigration: famine-driven flight (1915–18)

Who & why: following sectarian conflict in 1860 and subsequent European intervention, the major powers and the Ottoman government agreed to organize Mount Lebanon as a special autonomous province, governed by a non-Lebanese Christian mutasarrif appointed by the Ottoman sultan under international guarantee. This arrangement lasted until the Ottoman Empire's collapse at the close of World War I in 1918; wider Ottoman rule over the surrounding region continued through the same span.

What it represents: the Ottoman state flag, a red field with a white crescent and star, remained the flag of record for the mutasarrifate as an Ottoman province, even as its internal governance was distinctively autonomous.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3, plain rectangle shown here.

LayoutRed field, white crescent and five-pointed star.

Red#A4302A

White#F4EFE1

Ottoman state flag, part of Ottoman Syria

1517 – 1861

Ottoman Syria (undifferentiated)

Empire provinceSelim ISunni Islam (Ottoman state religion)

Migration & conquest:Conquered by: Ottoman EmpireEmigration: 1860 civil-war displacement

Who & why: Ottoman conquest in 1516–17 absorbed the region into the wider provincial system of Ottoman Syria, without a separate Lebanese administrative unit. Mount Lebanon itself, however, retained a real degree of local autonomy for much of this span under Druze and Maronite emirs — the Ma'n dynasty into the early 18th century, succeeded by the Shihab dynasty — who governed with a light Ottoman hand until growing sectarian tension and European involvement led to the more formal Mutasarrifate arrangement of 1861. This long, unevenly-governed span is treated here as one honest bridging entry rather than invented precise sub-periods.

What it represents: the Ottoman state flag, a red field with a white crescent and star, as the empire-wide flag of record; local emirs flew their own emblems but no single fixed Lebanese flag is documented for this era.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3, plain rectangle shown here.

LayoutRed field, white crescent and five-pointed star.

Red#A4302A

Mamluk gold field with a simplified eagle blazon

1289 – 1517

Mamluk Sultanate

SultanateQalawunSunni Islam (Mamluk state religion)

Migration & conquest:Conquered by: Mamluk Sultanate

Who & why: the Mamluks, ruling from Cairo, took Tripoli from its last Crusader count in 1289, ending Crusader presence in the region, and administered Lebanon's territory through provincial governors until the Ottoman conquest of 1516–17.

What it represents: Mamluk heraldry used gold and other emblematic blazons tied to individual sultans and officers rather than one fixed state flag; the design here is an informed reconstruction, not a documented single national banner.

Paint guide

ProportionsNo fixed ratio recorded — informed reconstruction.

LayoutGold field, dark emblematic device.

Gold#A9762F

the Jerusalem cross banner, flown by the County of Tripoli's Crusader rulers

1109 – 1289

County of Tripoli (Crusader)

Crusader stateBertrand of ToulouseRoman Catholicism (Latin Church, established)

Migration & conquest:Conquered by: Crusaders (County of Tripoli)

Ruling house:House of Toulouse (Counts of Tripoli)

Who & why: Crusader forces led by the heirs of Raymond of Toulouse took Tripoli in 1109, founding the County of Tripoli, which covered most of what is now Lebanon and existed alongside the Kingdom of Jerusalem as one of the Crusader states. The county fell to the Mamluks in 1289.

What it represents: the Crusader states used a range of banners; the Jerusalem cross, associated with the wider Crusader kingdom of which Tripoli was a close ally, is shown here as a regionally representative design rather than a documented flag specific to the county itself.

Paint guide

ProportionsNo fixed ratio recorded.

LayoutWhite field, gold "Jerusalem cross" (one large cross, four small crosses in the quarters).

White#F4EFE1

Gold#C9A13C

no flag documented — but the cedar symbol's roots run this deep

antiquity – 1109

Ancient Phoenicia through early Islamic rule

No flag documentedNo single ruler documentedNo single state religion (many in succession)

Who & why: the coastal city-states of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos were among the ancient Mediterranean's great maritime and trading powers, and the cedar forests of the mountains behind them — prized across the ancient world for shipbuilding and construction — are the direct origin of the cedar tree still at the center of Lebanon's flag today. Phoenician city-states passed under Assyrian, Babylonian, Achaemenid Persian, and then Alexander's Hellenistic rule, followed by Roman and Byzantine administration. The Rashidun Arab conquest of the 630s brought the region into the caliphate as part of Jund Dimashq, followed by Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid-era rule, down to the arrival of Crusader forces at Tripoli in 1109.

What it represents: no single flag is documented across this immense span; national flags as a concept postdate it. The cedar itself, however, was already a defining symbol of this land in antiquity, long before it appeared on any flag — shown here as a faint watermark rather than an invented banner.

Paint guide

ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.

Reading the tags

No flag documented — pre-heraldic antiquity

Crusader state — County of Tripoli

Sultanate — Mamluk rule from Cairo

Empire province — undifferentiated Ottoman Syria

Autonomous province — Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon

Mandate — League of Nations Mandate under France

Republic, independent — sovereign Lebanese state

Leader — the named ruler most associated with the era's start

State religion — the official/established faith, not the population's

Find the records

Family history research for Lebanon lives in a different project, Record Atlas, which maps which archive actually holds the paper for a given place and era.

Search Record Atlas for Lebanon →

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