Talk:Flag of Malaysia

No crescent in US flag
There is no crescent in the flag of the USA. Please modify relevent sentence in article.


 * Done. If you disagree with my modifications, feel free to visit my talkpage. Joshua Chiew 08:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Number of stripes
the 14 stripes and points of the star were originaly designed to include singapore, which was part of the federation upon independence. after the departure of singapore, the number was reduced to 13. however with the announcement of kuala lumpur as a federal territory in 1972, the number reverted back to 14.

The flag didn't change since 1963 - it remains the same flag with 14 stripes and 14-pointed star even after Singapore left the federation in 1965. Joshua Chiew 14:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * How can this be accurate when the main image of the flag displayed at the top of this article does not have 14 stripes? I counted them, and then I counted them again. And then a third time. The flag shown in this article most certainly has 13 stripes. Not 14. What is the real story here? Are you and your argument incorrect? Or is the image incorrect? 74.196.121.237 (talk) 04:55, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Ignore my previous reply. There are in fact 14. I stupidly forgot to count the bottom white stripe, because it blends in with the white webpage background. My mistake. 74.196.121.237 (talk) 05:08, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

The Eight Short Stripes
"Of the stripes, 8 shorter stripes represent the 4 Federated States (Selangor, Pahang, Perak, Negri Sembilan) and the 4 Unfederated States (Johor, Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah) of the Malay Peninsula during British colonialisation."

I never hear somebody saying this or learnt this in school. Besides that, it should have five - not four - Unfederated States (Johor, Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, Perlis). Joshua Chiew 14:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The fact that you, personally, have never heard about this does not mean it isn't true. It simply means you haven't heard of it. 74.196.121.237 (talk) 04:58, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Jalur Gemilang (translated lyrics)
I thought I would give Malay-to-English translation a shot. I have tried to stick as closely as possible to the spirit of the song without being too literal while at the same time not digressing too far from the original Malay wording but it still sounds a little clunky to me in English. The lines 'Semangat jaya kami warganya' and 'Amalan murni rakyat Malaysia' were particularly troublesome. Also, I took some liberties with the interpretation of payung in the third line of the first stanza; rendering it as 'umbrella' would have been just plain silly. Finally, I decided to leave the word 'Merdeka' untranslated as it has greater cultural resonance in its original form. Any suggestions for improvement? Sixtybolts 12:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Jalur Gemilang mp3
The mp3 given is not the Jalur Gemilang song. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhching (talk • contribs) 11:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Fimbriation on the Civil Maritime Ensign
I had thought that fimbriation was present in the civil maritime ensign back when there were an odd number of stripes, in order to distinguish the bottom stripe in the canton from the red of the flag. With 14 stripes, the bottom stripe is white and the fimbriation is no longer needed and (at least from what I have seen) not used. Kirk Hilliard (talk) 05:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Malaysian Chinese Association logo.png
The image File:Malaysian Chinese Association logo.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


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Similarity to US flag
Why is there no discussion of how similar this flag looks to the US? Was it derived from it, or a common ancestor?

-- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.4.178.234 (talk) 00:20, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The flag of the United States and the flag of Malaysia are both derived from the British East India Company flag. I remember that this was mentioned in past revisions of the article. Here is a revision (which, incidentally was my edit to revert my previous edit; I remembered it quite well because I got a talk page message) that includes the note at the History section. -- Joshua Say "hi" to me!What I've done? 13:39, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Stripes of Glory
Whoever keeps changing the meaning to "Stripes of Excellence", please stop. Jalur Gemilang means Stripes of Glory. That's the name. Stop changing it back to "Stripes of Excellence", and saying it is 'against source'. Everyone who knows Malay will attest to Gemilang meaning Glory, not Excellence. If you don't know Malay, don't change it. I've removed the South African website that said it was called "Stripes of Excellence", because it was a stupid source (seriously whoever added it couldn't find a better one??), and added one from the Malaysian Government. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timothykhoo (talk • contribs) 01:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Origin of the stripes
I disagree that the red and white stripes were based on British East India Company. The colours red and white are common in Austronesian / Malay cultures, to signify blood and purity. Majapahit flag had 9 red and white stripes. Red and white were also used in the flags of the ancient Malay empire Srivijaya, and the federation of Langkasuka. To this day, you can see red and white on the flags of Indonesia and Singapore, even Madagascar's flag has red and white due to the influence of Merina Kingdom whose ancestors came from the Malay Archipelago.

There's a need to mention the origin of red and white colours as a transcendental influence originating from native Malay Archipelago political entities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.53.141.39 (talk) 01:35, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Also do not see the British East India company flag, but rather an underlying United States flag, just compare the stripes, identical to the USA one.--Pedro (talk) 19:53, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Royal blue or dark blue
Hi Fl, I think the blue colour of should be corrected as seen on Open clip art and. The current colour are seen too far from the version on our country. &mdash; иz нίpнόpʜᴇʟᴘ! 21:48, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I pasted the above from my talk page. The writer has a point: the darker blue as seen in File:Flag_of_Malaysia.png is visually more familiar than File:Flag_of_Malaysia.svg, but the latter was changed from dark blue back to royal blue in 2011 by stating "this is what the government tells us to use". Zscout370 did not specify a source in that edit.
 * I cannot work out whether http://mymalaysia.net.my/knowmsia/national-symbols/ is an official website, but it shows dark blue in the canton. World Flag Database http://www.flags.net/MALS.htm also has dark blue. At the time of writing, I cannot retrieve the official sources cited in this Wikipedia article. – Fayenatic  L ondon 19:49, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The discussion about the colors took place at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Flag_of_Malaysia.svg. Anyways, my original source for the CMYK colors (from July 2007) come from Page 9 of "Bendera, banner, lambang, lagu kebangsaan dan lagu-lagu kebesaran negeri-negeri di Malaysia" (Jabatan Penerangan Malaysia, 2005, ISBN 983-54-0464-X) and a PDF copy can be found at http://dbaalss.nationalanthems.us/anthems/Malaysia_opt.pdf. (If the link doesn't work, I will be happy to provide it via email). The talk page I linked above was very unhappy with the colors, since it was too light of a shade and most flags are dark. I had to use another government source, which I will try and locate again, but cannot seem to find it on my hard drive. I hope this helps. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:31, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As for the websites posted, the first one is not official in any way. The World Flag Database is pretty good about having everything accurate on flags, but there are times where I find information that the WFD either doesn't know or hasn't updated yet (and hasn't been since August of 2011). User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:38, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This is the current version from one of our government website:
 * here
 * here
 * as you can see the blue colour also dark. &mdash; иz нίpнόpʜᴇʟᴘ! 06:01, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * At here, you can see also even the 1Malaysia symbol in dark blue. &mdash; иz нίpнόpʜᴇʟᴘ! 06:06, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Here also, you can see at the paragraph two said:
 * "Bahagian yang berwarna biru tua" (that means dark blue is use as the official colour of this flag) &mdash; иz нίpнόpʜᴇʟᴘ! 06:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * and here, all sources I stated above are from our official government website. &mdash; иz нίpнόpʜᴇʟᴘ! 06:16, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * United Nations website also display Malaysian flag in dark blue. &mdash; иz нίpнόpʜᴇʟᴘ! 13:21, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm satisfied that it should be changed back to a darker blue. Zscout370, as you are an administrator on Commons, please would you do it? It seems from File talk:Flag of Malaysia.svg that the case was previously made to your satisfaction in July 2007. – Fayenatic  L ondon 11:47, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Would this revision be acceptable? --Dschwen 22:53, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes! With a bit correction. :-) &mdash; иz нίpнόpʜᴇʟᴘ! 23:09, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Dschwen and Ranking Update, sorry for butting in, but I did notice that the fifth stripe is unusually thin, compared to the others. This causes a 'blur' effect when it is down scaled to, let's say 50px or 100px sizes. Furthermore, there is a thin red vertical line on the far right side of the flag, it is not part of the official measurements/designations. Sorry for the trouble Dschwen, but it would be highly appreciated if you could correct these small details. Many thanks ! Aero777 (talk) 23:19, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I have allowed reuploads of this file for autoconfirmed users. Unfortunately I don't have the time (and skill) to fix the issues myself. --Dschwen 00:27, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for lending a helping hand. I'm not any better at digital rendering either LOL, but I'll see what I can do. Cheers. - Aero777 (talk) 02:33, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I have fixed the errors, but I'm not allowed to upload the revised file. Maybe it's because I'm a new user, and not considered 'autoconfirmed'. Anyway, I have uploaded the revised file to a file sharing website here. It would be much appreciated if an experienced user could upload the revised file to Wiki Commons, as I don't have the permissions necessary to do it myself. Thanks - Aero777 (talk) 04:15, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll take care of it now. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 19:15, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I also have no issues with the color change; this looks very close to the exact flag I have from Malaysia (from Penang from over 10 years ago). I had to clean up the SVG code but also fix the dimensions on the stripes and the crescent and star, but overall I am very happy with the end result. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 19:34, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It looks far more accurate now, great work man, and thanks ! - Aero777 (talk) 13:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Blazon is Wrong
Currently reads 'In blazon, the Malaysian flag is described as: "A banner Gules, seven bars Argent ...'. That would be a flag with 15 stripes.  You want "A banner barry of fourteen Gules and Argent ...".    The blazon is different for even and odd numbers of stripes (it's a common confusion).  You can read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variation_of_the_field#Barry.2C_Paly.2C_Bendy or other heraldry sites.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.125.66.123 (talk) 19:27, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Similar flags
I removed the section "Similar flags" in April with the edit summary "Remove subjective and speculative WP:OR Similar flags". It has today been restored by without explanation. I have tagged the unsourced section with refimprove, but I really think that a section starting with "Perhaps" is far too speculative to remain. If a connection can be sourced between the US flag and the Malaysia flag, it should be mentioned, perhaps in a section with the title "Related flags" or similar. But if no such source is found, it has to go. Speculation has no place in an encyclopedia. --T*U (talk) 09:11, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It is more than a year since I wrote this and placed the templates in the section. Since then there has not been one single edit to the section, nor any answer or comment here. I will therefore remove the section. Feel free to reinsert it, provided it is properly sourced. --T*U (talk) 13:12, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
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Colour meanings of the flag
Without the meaning of the colour red and white. Red represents braveness and white represents holiness. Ravenlaw12345 (talk) 11:33, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Meaning of 14 stripes
The 14 stripes, of equal width, represent the equal status in the federation of the 13 member states and the federal territories, while the 14 points of the star represent the unity between these entities.

Actually the 14 stripes, represent the 14 member states of Malaysia at the point of the time of the flag creation. In 1963, Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak joined with other 11 states in Malayan Union forming the new nation Malaysia. So in total, the 14 stripes represent the 14th member of states at the point of time of the flag creation in 1963. Singapore leave Union from Malaysia in 1965, 2 years after creation of the Malaysian flag. In order to cover up the black history, it were distorted to mention 13 states and federal territory as the reason for the 14 stripes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.144.162.70 (talk) 12:37, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

“six more points were added to the star”
> At the suggestion of statesman Onn Jaafar, … six more points were added to the star.

Pictured proposal has five. Plus six makes eleven. Actual star has fourteen. I don’t know the truth, but this cannot be correct, JDAWiseman (talk) 20:37, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Official RGB
Online sources gives varying RGBs. If an official source can be found, please add. JDAWiseman (talk) 20:38, 25 September 2022 (UTC)