Family research · Phase 7 of the world atlas · the Levant
Flags of Syria
From ancient Levantine city-states and a Roman-then-Byzantine province, to the century when Damascus itself was the capital of an empire stretching from Iberia to the Indus, through Mamluk and four centuries of Ottoman rule, a French Mandate, independence, a brief union with Egypt, more than five decades of Assad family rule, and the government's fall in December 2024 — twelve flags across roughly 2,600 years of documented history.
This page sticks to dates, names, and documents throughout, including for the most recent entries. Where the record reaches into events still unfolding or freshly settled, it states only what is widely reported and avoids characterizing anything still contested.
Scope of this page: the lands of present-day Syria, antiquity–present, twelve political entities. An interactive internal-region map is included below, showing the one span (1920–1930) when the French Mandate genuinely split the territory into separate administrations. Part of a larger atlas — see the linked pages at the bottom.
Twelve eras, one real border — with one internal split
Syria's own present-day border, traced whole and used retrospectively across every earlier era — imperial Damascus's own extent, from antiquity to the 2024 transition. For one span, 1920–1930, the border below is itself split into the pieces France actually governed separately: the Alawite coast around Latakia, Jabal Druze around As-Suwayda, and the Damascus/Aleppo interior. Press play, or drag the slider.
This map splits internally exactly once. The French Mandate genuinely fragmented Syria for part of 1920–1930: separate French-administered states for the Alawite coast and for Jabal Druze, alongside Damascus and Aleppo further inland — a real internal split, traced below for that span rather than only described in prose. Recentralization folds all of it back into one unified Mandate administration by 1930 (the same institutions that become the Syrian Republic in 1946); every other era on this map, before or after, is one unified territory.
antiquity–636
Ancient & Byzantine Syria
Real traced border (Syria's present-day extent, used retrospectively). Schematic internal partition on this real border — the Alawite/Jabal Druze/interior dividing lines are approximate, not surveyed state borders; the split shown only applies to the French Mandate's 1920–1930 fragmentation and dissolves for every other era.
the 1932 independence flag, readopted after Dec 2024
2024 – present
Transitional government
Transitional governmentAhmed al-SharaaSunni Islam (majority faith; formal status unsettled)
Who & why: in early December 2024, an opposition offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham advanced rapidly across the country and captured Damascus, ending 54 years of Assad family rule. A transitional authority took over administration of the country. This is very recent history; this page sticks to what has been widely reported — the change of government and the change of flag — without characterizing events still unfolding.
What it represents: the transitional authorities readopted the green-white-black tricolor with three red stars, the flag first used at independence in the 1930s–40s, in place of the red-white-black two-star flag flown by the Ba'athist government since 1980.
Paint guide
Proportions2:3, three equal horizontal bands.
LayoutGreen, white, black horizontal bands; three red five-pointed stars centered in the white band.
Green#007A3D
White#F4EFE1
Black#000000
Stars, red#C8102E
red-white-black, two green stars, adopted 1980
1980 – 2024
Ba'athist Syrian Arab Republic
Ba'athist republicHafez al-AssadNo official state religion (secular Ba'athist state)
Who & why: the Ba'ath Party had held power since a 1963 coup; Hafez al-Assad, already the dominant figure since a 1970 internal takeover, formalized his presidency in 1971, beginning Assad family rule. His son Bashar al-Assad succeeded him in 2000. A civil war began in 2011 and continued for thirteen years, ending with the government's fall in December 2024.
What it represents: a red-white-black tricolor with two green stars, adopted in 1980 — visually similar to, but a historically distinct design from, the 1958–61 United Arab Republic flag below.
Paint guide
Proportions2:3, three equal horizontal bands.
LayoutRed, white, black horizontal bands; two green five-pointed stars centered in the white band.
Red#A4302A
White#F4EFE1
Black#000000
Stars, green#0B7A3D
the 1932 flag, restored after the 1961 secession from the UAR
1961 – 1980
Syrian Arab Republic (post-union)
Republic, independentNazim al-KudsiNo official state religion (secular republic)
Migration & conquest:Occupied by: Israel (Golan Heights, 1967–)
Who & why: Syria seceded from the United Arab Republic in September 1961 and restored its own institutions and flag. The 1963 coup that brought the Ba'ath Party to power falls within this span; the flag itself did not change again until 1980.
What it represents: a return to the 1932 green-white-black tricolor with three red stars, the same design flown at independence in 1946.
Paint guide
Proportions2:3, three equal horizontal bands.
LayoutGreen, white, black horizontal bands; three red five-pointed stars centered in the white band.
Green#007A3D
Stars, red#C8102E
the United Arab Republic flag, shared with Egypt
1958 – 1961
United Arab Republic (union with Egypt)
UnionGamal Abdel NasserIslam (declared state religion)
Who & why: Syria and Egypt merged into a single state, the United Arab Republic, in February 1958, under President Gamal Abdel Nasser. The union dissolved in September 1961 after a military coup in Damascus.
What it represents: a red-white-black tricolor with two green stars representing the two constituent republics — a design visually close to, but a historically distinct instance from, the 1980 Ba'athist-era flag above.
Paint guide
Proportions2:3, three equal horizontal bands.
LayoutRed, white, black horizontal bands; two green five-pointed stars, one per constituent republic.
Red#A4302A
Stars, green#0B7A3D
the independence-era flag, adopted 1932, flown 1946–58
1946 – 1958
Syrian Republic (independence)
Republic, independentShukri al-QuwatliNo official state religion (secular republic)
Who & why: full French military withdrawal was completed on 17 April 1946, still marked annually as Evacuation Day. The Syrian Republic, whose institutions had already existed under the French Mandate since 1930, became fully sovereign.
What it represents: the green-white-black tricolor with three red stars, originally adopted by the Mandate-era Syrian Republic in 1932 and carried forward unchanged into full independence.
Paint guide
Proportions2:3, three equal horizontal bands.
LayoutGreen, white, black horizontal bands; three red five-pointed stars centered in the white band.
Green#007A3D
Stars, red#C8102E
French tricolor, flown over Mandate Syria alongside local flags
1920 – 1946
French Mandate
MandateHenri GouraudNo official state religion (French secular administration)
Migration & conquest:Immigration: Armenian genocide survivors (early 1920s)
Who & why: Emir Faisal, who had led the Arab Revolt, proclaimed an independent Arab Kingdom of Syria in Damascus in March 1920; it lasted four months, ending when French troops defeated his small army at the Battle of Maysalun that July. The April 1920 San Remo Conference formalized a League of Nations Mandate for Syria and Lebanon under French administration, which continued until full withdrawal in 1946.
What it represents: the French tricolor flew as the mandatory power's flag; the Mandate-era Syrian Republic, established in 1930, flew its own green-white-black tricolor with three stars alongside it from 1932 on — the same flag independent Syria later kept.
Paint guide
Proportions2:3, three equal vertical bands (French tricolor).
LayoutBlue, white, red vertical bands.
Blue#0B3D7A
Red#A4302A
Ottoman red field, crescent and star
1517 – 1918
Ottoman Empire (Damascus and Aleppo eyalets)
Empire provinceSelim ISunni Islam (state religion)
Who & why: Ottoman Sultan Selim I broke Mamluk power at Marj Dabiq near Aleppo in 1516, absorbing the region into Ottoman provinces run by appointed pashas answering to Constantinople. Four centuries of continuous Ottoman rule followed, the longest single-power era the region experienced since the coming of Islam, ending with the Ottoman collapse at the close of World War I in 1918.
What it represents: the Ottoman state flag, a red field with a white crescent and star, flown across all Ottoman provincial territory including the eyalets of Damascus and Aleppo.
Paint guide
Proportions2:3, plain rectangle shown here.
LayoutRed field, white crescent and five-pointed star.
Red#A4302A
White#F4EFE1
Mamluk gold field with a simplified eagle blazon
1260 – 1517
Mamluk Sultanate
SultanateBaybarsSunni Islam (state religion)
Who & why: the Mamluks, a slave-soldier caste that had seized the Egyptian sultanate from the Ayyubids in 1250, crushed a Mongol invasion at Ain Jalut in 1260 and absorbed inland Syria the same year, ruling the region through a network of Cairo-appointed governors until the 1516–17 Ottoman conquest.
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 of the era's common gold-field, dark-emblem convention, not a documented single national banner.
Paint guide
ProportionsNo fixed ratio recorded — informed reconstruction.
LayoutGold field, dark emblematic device.
Gold#A9762F
Dark emblem#241F14
plain dark field, Sunni-revival Damascus under Nur ad-Din and Saladin
1174 – 1260
Zengid & Ayyubid Damascus
SultanateSaladinSunni Islam (state religion)
Ruling house:Zengid dynastyAyyubid dynasty
Who & why: Nur ad-Din's Zengid dynasty took Damascus in 1154 and led a Sunni military revival against the Crusader states; his general Saladin succeeded him, founded the Ayyubid dynasty, and retook Jerusalem in 1187. Ayyubid rule over Damascus and inland Syria continued until the Mongol invasion of 1260, which the Mamluks then repelled and replaced with their own rule.
What it represents: no single fixed state flag is documented for this era; the dark field with a plain emblem here is an honest placeholder representing the period's Sunni Turkic and Kurdish-founded dynastic rule rather than a specific attested banner.
Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no fixed flag documented.
plain black, the Abbasid dynastic color
750 – 1174
Abbasid suzerainty and local dynasties
SultanateAs-Saffah (founding Abbasid caliph)Sunni Islam (predominant)
Who & why: the 750 Abbasid revolution shifted the caliphate's capital to Baghdad, and direct Abbasid control over Syria gradually loosened over the following centuries as regional governors and successor dynasties — including the Tulunids, Ikhshidids, Hamdanids, and Fatimid-appointed administrators — exercised effective local rule, formally or nominally under Abbasid or Fatimid suzerainty. This long, genuinely fragmented span is treated here as one honest bridging entry rather than a set of invented precise sub-periods. It ends when the Zengid dynasty under Nur ad-Din unified Damascus and much of inland Syria in 1174.
What it represents: plain black is the color consistently associated with Abbasid banners; local and successor dynasties across this span flew their own emblems, none of which is treated here as the single flag of Syria as a whole.
Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no fixed ratio documented.
LayoutPlain black field.
Black#000000
plain white — the color most commonly associated with the Umayyads
636 – 750
Umayyad Caliphate (Damascus as imperial capital)
CaliphateMu'awiyaSunni Islam (state religion)
Ruling house:Umayyad dynasty (Banu Umayya)
Who & why: Byzantine Syria fell to Rashidun Arab armies in the 630s, the decisive blow landing at the Battle of the Yarmouk in 636. Mu'awiya, first governor of Syria under the Rashidun caliphs, founded the Umayyad Caliphate in 661 and made Damascus its capital — for nearly a century, the seat of an empire stretching from Iberia to the Indus ran through this one city, a real golden age for Damascus as an imperial center. The dynasty ended in 750, when the Abbasid revolution overthrew it and shifted the caliphate's center of gravity east to Baghdad.
What it represents: plain white is the color most consistently associated with Umayyad banners in the historical record, distinguishing them from the Abbasids' black and the Fatimids' green that followed. No single fixed design beyond the plain field is reliably documented.
Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no fixed ratio documented.
LayoutPlain white field.
White#F4EFE1
placeholder maroon field — pre-heraldic antiquity
antiquity – 636
Ancient & Byzantine Syria
No flag documentedNo single ruler documentedVaried: polytheism, then Christianity (Byzantine era)
Who & why: the lands of present-day Syria carried some of the ancient Near East's earliest urban civilizations — the Bronze Age kingdom of Ebla, the trading city of Ugarit, and later Aramaean kingdoms centered on Damascus — before falling successively to Assyrian, Babylonian, Achaemenid Persian, and then Alexander's Hellenistic conquest. Seleucid Greek rule gave way to Rome by the 1st century BCE, and the province continued under Byzantine (Eastern Roman) administration until the Rashidun Arab conquest that began in the 630s and culminated at the Battle of the Yarmouk in 636.
What it represents: no securely documented flag survives from this pre-heraldic span; national and civic flags as a concept postdate this entire era. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.
Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.
Reading the tags
No flag documented — pre-heraldic antiquity
Caliphate — imperial Islamic rule
Sultanate — Zengid/Ayyubid successor rule
Sultanate — Mamluk rule from Cairo
Empire province — Ottoman rule
Mandate — League of Nations Mandate under France
Republic, independent — sovereign Syrian state
Union — crown/state shared with Egypt
Ba'athist republic — Ba'ath Party and Assad-family rule
Transitional government — post-2024 administration
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 Syria lives in a different project, Record Atlas, which maps which archive actually holds the paper for a given place and era.