Flag of North Macedonia

What the flag of North Macedonia looks like

The flag of North Macedonia has a red field with a golden-yellow sun in the center. The sun is a small disc surrounded by eight rays that widen toward their tips and run out to the edges of the flag. Four rays point straight up, down, left and right, and four point diagonally into the corners, so the flag looks like a sun that fills the whole field. Its width-to-height ratio is 1:2.

There are no other symbols, which makes it quick to recognize. It is often described as a stylized sun on a red background. It was designed by the Macedonian artist Miroslav Grčev. For image files see the download page, and the flag emoji is at /north-macedonia/emoji/.

Meaning of the North Macedonia flag

The sun refers to a line in the national anthem, Denes nad Makedonija ("Today over Macedonia"), which describes the "new sun of freedom" rising over the country. The eight rays are not tied to a specific official meaning. The red field and golden sun are the whole of the design, and no further official meaning is attached to the colors.

The eight-rayed sun derives from the national emblem.

History of the flag of Macedonia

From 1946 to 1991 Macedonia was a republic of Yugoslavia. Its flag in that period was red with a gold-edged red star in the canton, similar to the flags of the Soviet Union or China. Macedonia was the only Yugoslav republic not to use the Pan-Slavic colors on its flag.

After independence in 1991 the country, then known as the Republic of Macedonia, adopted a new flag on 11 August 1992. It showed a yellow sun with eight main and eight secondary rays on red, the so-called Vergina Sun, a symbol found at Vergina (ancient Aigai) in northern Greece and associated with the ancient Macedonian kingdom. Greece, which has a region called Macedonia and regards the symbol as part of its own heritage, objected strongly, imposed an economic blockade on its northern neighbor from February 1994, and also blocked the flag from being flown at the United Nations headquarters.

In 1995 the government asked Miroslav Grčev to draft a new design, and an agreement with Greece that October lifted the blockade in return for changing the flag. The new flag with eight broadening rays was adopted by parliament on 5 October 1995. In 2018 the Prespa Agreement settled the long dispute over the name, and in 2019 the country officially became North Macedonia. The 1995 flag was not changed, but the agreement required the Vergina Sun to be removed from public use.

Flags that look like North Macedonia's flag

Other flags built around a sun on a solid field include Kyrgyzstan, which shows a yellow sun with forty rays on red, and Japan, which has a red disc on white. You can compare more designs on the flags of the world page.