Saudi Arabia
What the source says
Referenced, awaiting primary-source reviewThe current design was officially adopted on 15 March 1973. The flag's green represents Islam; the inscription is the Islamic declaration of faith; the sword stands for safety and justice. The flag is never lowered to half-mast as a sign of mourning because lowering it would be considered blasphemous and desecrating.
Referenced, not verified: a secondary work states this, and the document that constitutes the flag has not been read for this entry. What the marks mean.
Colors and meaning
Symbolism and history(r1)
The Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith, is written in white Thuluth script above a white sword (standing for safety and justice) on a plain green field; the flag is never lowered to half-mast, as doing so would be considered blasphemous.
Most similar flags
The 6 closest of the 194 other national flags, ranked by a similarity index computed from the flag images themselves. The number is that index, 0–100 — not a claim that the two flags are “X% identical”.
- Mauritania75
the same horizontal band layout.
- Pakistan66
the same colours in similar amounts.
- Bangladesh65
the same colours in similar amounts.
- Suriname64
the same horizontal band layout; similar colours in a different arrangement.
- Togo63
the same horizontal band layout; similar colours in a different arrangement.
- Turkmenistan63
the same colours in similar amounts.
Computed at build time: each flag is rasterised to 64x48, and the score is 0.55 × colour overlap + 0.45 × structure. A different weighting would rank these differently. How the index works.
References — not verification
(r1) Referenced to Flag of Saudi Arabia (Wikipedia (English)) on 2026-07-17. States the adoption year, which colors the flag has, what the colors mean and the symbolism and history on this page. The passage it states them in is quoted at the top of this entry.
Further reading: Flag of Saudi Arabia on Wikipedia