Flags of Uzbekistan

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Flags of Uzbekistan

From ancient Sogdian merchant city-states along the Silk Road, through the Samanid golden age and Timur's empire built from Samarkand, three rival Uzbek khanates, Russian Turkestan, and Soviet rule, to independence in 1991 — eight flags across the deepest Silk Road heritage of any Central Asian republic.

Uzbekistan is the region's most populous state today, home to Samarkand and Bukhara, cities whose Registan and centuries of Islamic scholarship still stand as monuments to their respective golden ages.

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

One border, eight rulers

Uzbekistan'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. Two of these eras — the three-khanate span (Bukhara, Khiva, Kokand) and the 1917–24 transitional patchwork of the Turkestan ASSR and the Bukharan and Khorezm People's Soviet Republics — genuinely covered multiple, differently-governed polities at once. The timeline above already treats both honestly as single bridging entries rather than inventing precise sub-borders, and this map follows the same rule rather than drawing lines the record doesn't support.
antiquity
KAZAKHSTAN TURKMENISTAN ARAL SEA TAJIKISTAN UZBEKISTAN
Ancient Sogdiana and Bactria

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

light blue, white, green bands with red fimbriations; crescent and twelve stars
1991 – present

Republic of Uzbekistan

Republic, independentIslam KarimovNo established state religion (secular)
Migration & conquest:Emigration: Russian, German & Jewish minorities (1990s)Emigration: labor migrants to Russia & Kazakhstan

Who & why: Uzbekistan declared independence in the closing days of the Soviet Union's collapse, on 31 August/1 September 1991. It is the most populous of the five Central Asian republics.

What it represents: light blue, white, and green horizontal bands separated by thin red fimbriations, with a white crescent moon and twelve white stars in the canton, adopted in November 1991.

Paint guide
Proportions1:2.
LayoutLight blue, white, green horizontal bands with thin red fimbriations between them; white crescent and twelve stars in canton.
Light blue#0099B5
Green#1EB53A
Red fimbriation#C8102E
Soviet red with hammer & sickle, light-blue stripe near the base
1924 – 1991

Uzbek SSR

Soviet republicFayzulla KhodjaevState atheism
Migration & conquest:Immigration: deported Soviet Koreans (1937)Immigration: deported Crimean Tatars (1944)

Who & why: the Uzbek SSR was created in 1924 as part of the Soviet "national delimitation" of Central Asia, carved out of the former Turkestan ASSR and the Bukharan and Khorezm People's Soviet Republics. 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 light-blue 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, light-blue stripe near the base.
Red#A4302A
Soviet red, transitional Turkestan-era administration
1917 – 1924

Turkestan ASSR, Bukharan & Khorezm People's Soviet Republics

Autonomous republicFayzulla KhodjaevSunni Islam (nominal, under growing Soviet pressure)
Migration & conquest:Emigration: Basmachi refugees to Afghanistan

Who & why: the 1917 Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war brought Soviet power to the region in stages: the Turkestan ASSR was established in 1918, and the last Emir of Bukhara and Khan of Khiva were deposed in 1920, giving way to the nominally independent Bukharan and Khorezm People's Soviet Republics. All were absorbed into the newly delimited Soviet republics in 1924, including the Uzbek SSR above.

What it represents: variants of the Soviet red flag with hammer-and-sickle emblem, used across this transitional patchwork of Soviet and nominally independent Soviet-aligned administrations.

Paint guide
Proportions1:2.
LayoutRed field, gold hammer-and-sickle emblem.
Red#A4302A
Russian imperial tricolor over Turkestan
1865 – 1917

Russian Turkestan

Empire provinceKonstantin von KaufmanRussian Orthodox (imperial); Sunni Islam (local)
Migration & conquest:Immigration: Slavic settlers (1880s–)

Who & why: Russian imperial conquest of the region proceeded in stages: Tashkent fell in 1865, the Khanate of Kokand was annexed outright in 1876, and the Emirate of Bukhara and Khanate of Khiva became Russian protectorates by the mid-1870s, retaining nominal local rulers under Russian oversight. This staged conquest is treated here as one honest bridging entry.

What it represents: the Russian imperial tricolor, flown across the Governorate-General of Turkestan; the protected khanates of Bukhara and Khiva continued to fly their own local flags under Russian suzerainty.

Paint guide
Proportions2:3, three equal horizontal bands.
LayoutWhite, blue, red horizontal bands.
Blue#0039A6
Red#D52B1E
Bukhara's green field with crescent, representative of the three khanates
c. 1500 – 1865

The Uzbek khanates

KhanateMuhammad ShaybaniSunni Islam
Ruling house:Shaybanid dynastyManghit dynasty

Who & why: following the Timurid empire's collapse, the Shaybanid dynasty (Uzbek in origin) founded the Khanate of Bukhara around 1500. The region subsequently fragmented among three rival khanates — Bukhara, Khiva, and, from the 18th century, Kokand — each with its own ruling dynasty and none in a genuinely unified state. This long, multi-khanate era is treated here as one honest bridging entry rather than invented precise sub-periods.

What it represents: a green field with a white crescent, associated with the Khanate of Bukhara, shown here as representative of the era's Islamic khanates generally rather than a single fixed regional banner.

Paint guide
ProportionsNo fixed ratio recorded.
LayoutGreen field, white crescent.
Green#0B6E3F
the Timurid standard's three rings, reconstructed
1370 – c. 1500

Timurid Empire

Empire, independentTimur (Tamerlane)Sunni Islam
Migration & conquest:Immigration: artisans forcibly relocated to Samarkand
Ruling house:Timurid dynasty

Who & why: Timur (Tamerlane), a Turco-Mongol conqueror claiming descent from Genghis Khan's line, built his empire from Samarkand beginning in 1370; the city's Registan and Timurid architecture still stand as the era's monument. His descendants, including the astronomer-king Ulugh Beg, ruled a gradually shrinking realm into the early 1500s, before conquest by the Shaybanid Uzbek dynasty.

What it represents: the Timurid dynasty is associated with a standard bearing three rings (sometimes read as three circles in a triangular arrangement), widely reproduced in later depictions of Timurid heraldry; shown here as an informed reconstruction on a blue field.

Paint guide
ProportionsNo fixed ratio recorded — informed reconstruction.
LayoutBlue field, three gold rings.
Blue#1A3A6B
Gold#C9A13C
plain black, the Abbasid-suzerainty color under which the Samanids first governed
8th c. – 1220

Islamic conquest through the Samanid golden age to the Mongol conquest

Caliphate / EmpireQutayba ibn MuslimSunni Islam
Migration & conquest:Conquered by: Mongol Empire (1220)
Ruling house:Samanid dynasty

Who & why: Arab armies completed the Islamic conquest of Transoxiana (Sogdiana) in the early-to-mid 8th century, bringing the region under Umayyad and then Abbasid suzerainty. Out of Abbasid-appointed governorship arose the Persianate Samanid Empire (819–999, capital Bukhara), a major Silk Road golden age of science, literature, and Islamic scholarship. Samanid rule gave way to the Turkic Karakhanid and Khwarezmian dynasties through the 11th and 12th centuries, ending abruptly with the Mongol conquest and the sack of Samarkand and Bukhara under Genghis Khan in 1220.

What it represents: plain black, the color associated with Abbasid banners under which the Samanids initially governed, is shown here as representative of this long, dynastically varied span rather than a single fixed regional flag.

Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no fixed ratio documented.
LayoutPlain black field.
Black#000000
NO FLAG DOCUMENTED
placeholder maroon field — ancient Sogdiana and Bactria
antiquity – 8th c.

Ancient Sogdiana and Bactria

No flag documentedNo single ruler documentedZoroastrianism & Buddhism (varied)
Migration & conquest:Conquered by: Alexander the Great (329 BCE)

Who & why: the Zeravshan and Amu Darya valleys were home to Sogdian merchant city-states — Samarkand and Bukhara were already ancient trade centers well before Islam's arrival — that thrived on Silk Road commerce, passing through Achaemenid Persian rule, Alexander the Great's Hellenistic conquest and the Greco-Bactrian successor states, and Kushan Empire rule, before the early Islamic conquest.

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
Caliphate / Empire — Arab conquest through Samanid, Karakhanid, Khwarezmian rule
Empire, independent — Timurid Empire
Khanate — Bukhara, Khiva, Kokand
Empire province — Russian imperial rule
Autonomous republic — Turkestan ASSR & transitional republics
Soviet republic — Uzbek SSR
Republic, independent — modern Uzbekistan
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 Uzbekistan 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 Uzbekistan →

More of the atlas

This page is one lineage in a larger set. See the region-wide hub and the other countries here:

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