Flag of Kazakhstan



The national flag of Kazakhstan, also called the Kazakh flag (Қазақстан туы, Qazaqstan tuy, ; Флаг Казахстана), was adopted on 4 June 1992, replacing the flag of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The flag was designed by Shaken Niyazbekov.

Description
The national flag of the Republic of Kazakhstan has a gold sun with 32 rays above a soaring golden steppe eagle, both centered on a turquoise background; the hoist side displays a national ornamental pattern called "koshkar-muiz" (the horns of the ram) in gold; the blue colour is of religious significance to the Turkic peoples of the country, and so symbolises cultural and ethnic unity; it also represents the endless sky as well as water. The gold and blue colours also evoke the former Soviet flag, reusing the gold from the hammer and sickle, and the shade of blue from the turquoise bar at the bottom of that flag. The sun, a source of life and energy, exemplifies wealth and plenitude; the sun's rays are shaped like grain, which is the basis of abundance and prosperity; the eagle has appeared on the flags of Kazakh tribes for centuries and represents freedom, power, and the flight to the future. The width of the flag to its length is 1:2.

Kazakh Khanate
The Kazakh Khanate was a decentralized state without an agreed upon flag. There is an alleged blue flag with a white endless knot and three white 5-pointed stars in the hoist side of the flag.

The depicted is flag sometimes considered to not be connected to Khanate, inasmuch as its main ornament not observed by any other Turkic countries. The endless knot is mostly seen in Buddhist and Hinduist cultures.

Although the ornament is considered to not be Kazakh, it still takes part in Kazakh culture. Some historians note that the ornament could come to the Kazakhs by trade with Chinese, Oirats, or Dzungars, since ancient Turks and Chinese maintained close relationships.

Russian Empire
In 1882, the Kazakh Khanate was disestablished when Russia invaded the Kazakh Steppe. Kazakh lands were divided into provinces, all of which used the flag of Russian Empire.

Central Asian Revolt
In 1916, Russia required Muslim people of central Asia to join Russian military forces. Russian colonial regime and economic instability lead to the Central Asian Revolt. Amongst Kazakhs, Amankeldı İmanov was leading figure in the revolts. He and his associated used red flag with the yellow text; blue half-moon in the top-left; blue bow, spear and an axe crossed on red background.

The text on the flag is in Arabic script, since Kazakh's writing system was Arabic prior to 1929. The text on the flag says: "Flag of warrior leader, Amangeldy batyr" (Batyr means hero in Kazakh).

Alash Autonomy
During World War I, Russia was exhausted as it was not ready for war. This was the reason for the food shortages, which occurred even in major cities like Petrograd. First revolution, started because of an economic instability led to the Russian ministers in charge of Central Asia to create the Alash party and found their own autonomy on territory of modern Kazakhstan.

Alash state again lacked one agreed flag, however the Autonomy had their proposed flags. Alikhan Bukeikhanov and Barlybek Syrtanov proposed the flag with green, yellow, red stripes and white crescent with yellow star in top-left in the draft constitution of the "Country of the Kazakhs" (1911), however, there is not a single historical confirmation of the use of this flag by the Alash Orda (1917–1920). The direction of stripes is not mentioned. Sometimes people use the logo of Kazak, the journal published by members of Alash, as a flag of the Autonomy. This variant of flag depicts a yellow yurt on a white background, this flag is mentioned in the "Will of the People" newspaper as approved on 6 June 1918.

Soviet Kazakhstan
After the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War, The Soviets consolidated Alash into the newly forming Kazakh Autonomy, resulting in the establishment of the Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic in 1920. The first flag of the Kazakh ASSR consisted of two lines of yellow text in the canton, surrounded with a yellow line, reading "KSSR" (Kazakh SSR), and "R.F." (Russian Federation). Kazakhstan was a part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic until the 1937 establishment of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic within the Union, and, subsequently, changed its flag. This flag had the hammer and sickle in the canton and the name of the republic in Kazakh and Russian under it. The Kazakh name was written in Latin, as the writing system of Kazakh changed in 1929 from Arabic to Latin.

The final change of flag of the flag of the Kazakh SSR happened in 1953, when all the Soviet republics redesigned their flags. This flag consisted of a hammer and a sickle with a star above it and a light blue horizontal stripe on a red background. It remained in brief use after Kazakhstan gained its independence in December 1991.

Republic of Kazakhstan
Unlike other formerly Soviet nations, like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus or Ukraine, Kazakhstan did not have an official flag before becoming part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan kept its Soviet flag up until 4 June 1992.

The Government of Kazakhstan organized a contest on 2 January 1992, which received these proposed flags:

The designer of the current flag, Shaken Niyazbekov, had originally colored the ornament red. This was changed in July 1992 to the current shade of gold.