Flags of Turkmenistan

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Flags of Turkmenistan

From the ancient Silk Road oasis of Merv — briefly one of the largest cities in the world under the Seljuks before the Mongols destroyed it — through centuries of self-governing Turkmen tribal confederations, the last Central Asian people conquered by Russia, Soviet rule, and finally a constitutionally neutral republic pursuing one of the world's most isolationist foreign policies.

Seven flags across a landscape more defined by tribe and oasis than by any single central state, until the 20th century imposed one.

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

One border, seven rulers

Turkmenistan's own real border, traced whole — another page in this atlas without an internal split to show. Press play, or drag the slider, to watch who held all of it, era to era.

This is one of the countries in the atlas that doesn't split internally. Even the long tribal-confederation era (Teke, Yomut, Ersari, and others) was a patchwork of self-governing groups sharing the same territory rather than dividing it into separate held regions — there's no honest way to carve out sub-borders that were never surveyed or fixed. What changes here is only who claimed or governed the whole span at once.
antiquity
KAZAKHSTAN CASPIAN SEA UZBEKISTAN IRAN AFGHANISTAN TURKMENISTAN
Ancient Turkmen lands and early Merv

Real traced border, no internal partition — see the rule box above for why.

green field, carpet-gul hoist stripe, crescent and stars
1991 – present

Republic of Turkmenistan

Republic, independentSaparmurat NiyazovSecular (no official state religion)
Migration & conquest:Emigration: ethnic Russians & Slavs (post-1991)

Who & why: Turkmenistan declared independence on 27 October 1991. In 1995 it adopted a constitutionally declared status of permanent neutrality, formally recognized by a United Nations General Assembly resolution, and has since pursued one of the world's most famously isolationist foreign policies.

What it represents: a green field with a vertical stripe near the hoist bearing five traditional carpet guls (weaving patterns, one representing each major Turkmen tribe), above a white crescent moon and five stars, adopted in 1992 with minor design adjustments in later years.

Paint guide
Proportions2:3.
LayoutGreen field; dark-red carpet-gul stripe near the hoist; white crescent and five stars.
Green#00843D
Carpet-gul red#7C2E1F
Soviet red with hammer & sickle, turquoise stripe near the base
1924 – 1991

Turkmen SSR

Soviet republicJoseph StalinState atheism
Migration & conquest:Immigration: Russian & Slavic settlers (Soviet era)

Who & why: the Turkmen SSR was created in 1924 in the Soviet "national delimitation" of Central Asia, carved from the former Turkestan ASSR and neighboring territories. It remained a Soviet republic until 1991.

What it represents: the standard Soviet red flag with a gold hammer and sickle and star in the canton, distinguished by a turquoise horizontal stripe near the base — a common pattern among the Central Asian SSR flags.

Paint guide
Proportions1:2.
LayoutRed field, gold hammer-and-sickle-and-star canton, turquoise stripe near the base.
Red#A4302A
Soviet red, transitional Turkestan-era administration
1917 – 1924

Turkestan ASSR (transitional)

Autonomous republicVladimir LeninState atheism

Who & why: following the 1917 Russian Revolution and civil war, the Transcaspian region became part of the Turkestan ASSR, a post-revolutionary Soviet transitional administration, before the 1924 national delimitation carved out the Turkmen SSR above.

What it represents: the Soviet red flag with hammer-and-sickle emblem, flown across the transitional Turkestan ASSR administration.

Paint guide
Proportions1:2.
LayoutRed field, gold hammer-and-sickle emblem.
Red#A4302A
Russian imperial tricolor over the Transcaspian Oblast
1881 – 1917

Russian Transcaspian conquest and rule

Empire provinceMikhail SkobelevRussian Orthodox Christianity (imperial state religion)
Migration & conquest:Conquered by: Russian Empire (1881)Immigration: Russian railway workers & administrators
Ruling house:House of Romanov

Who & why: the Turkmen were the last of the Central Asian peoples conquered by Russia. The decisive Battle of Geok Tepe in January 1881 broke Teke Turkmen resistance, and the region was organized as the Transcaspian Oblast of Russian Turkestan.

What it represents: the Russian imperial tricolor, flown across all territory under Russian imperial administration including the newly conquered Transcaspian region.

Paint guide
Proportions2:3, three equal horizontal bands.
LayoutWhite, blue, red horizontal bands.
Blue#0039A6
Red#D52B1E
no single flag documented; reconstructed tribal-emblem motif
c. 1500s – 1881

Turkmen tribal confederations

Tribal confederationsNo single ruler documentedSunni Islam (no central state establishment)

Who & why: no central Turkmen state existed in this era. Instead, a patchwork of tribal confederations — the Teke, Yomut, Ersari, and others — governed themselves in practice, under the shifting nominal overlordship or influence of the neighboring Khanate of Khiva, the Emirate of Bukhara, and Persia (Safavid and later Qajar). This fragmented, non-unified span is treated here as one honest bridging entry rather than invented precise sub-periods, ending with Russian conquest in 1881.

What it represents: no single flag is documented for a landscape of self-governing tribal confederations rather than one central state; each tribe had its own carpet gul and tamga (clan emblem) instead. Shown here as an informed reconstruction of that tradition, not a documented banner.

Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no fixed flag documented.
plain dark field, no fixed banner documented
c. 1040 – c. 1500s

Seljuk Merv, Mongol destruction, and successor rule

Empire / SultanateTughril BegSunni Islam
Migration & conquest:Conquered by: Mongol Empire (1221)

Who & why: the Silk Road oasis city of Merv, in present-day Turkmenistan, was a major Seljuk Empire capital in the 11th and 12th centuries, briefly one of the largest cities in the world. The Mongols destroyed Merv catastrophically in 1221, one of history's most devastating urban sacks, killing much of its population. The region was later absorbed into Timur's empire and its successors before Uzbek khanate influence extended over parts of it.

What it represents: no single fixed state flag is documented across this era's shifting Seljuk, Mongol, and Timurid-successor rule; shown here as an honest placeholder.

Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no fixed flag documented.
NO FLAG DOCUMENTED
placeholder maroon field — ancient Turkmen lands and early Merv
antiquity – c. 1040

Ancient Turkmen lands and early Merv

No flag documentedNo single ruler documentedZoroastrianism, then Sunni Islam after the 7th–8th c. conquest
Migration & conquest:Conquered by: Arab Caliphate (mid-7th c.)

Who & why: the Kara-Kum oasis settlements, above all Merv, passed through Achaemenid Persian, Hellenistic (following Alexander's conquest), Parthian, and Sasanian-era rule before the early Islamic conquest of the 7th–8th century brought Merv into the caliphate as a major regional capital, a status it held into the Seljuk era above.

What it represents: no securely documented flag survives from this span; national flags as a concept postdate it entirely. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.

Reading the tags

No flag documented — pre-Islamic antiquity
Empire / Sultanate — Seljuk, Mongol, Timurid successor rule
Tribal confederations — self-governing Turkmen tribes
Empire province — Russian imperial rule
Autonomous republic — Turkestan ASSR
Soviet republic — Turkmen SSR
Republic, independent — modern Turkmenistan
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 Turkmenistan 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 Turkmenistan →

More of the atlas

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