Flag of Tunisia

Flag of the Bey of Tunis

Until the mid-18th century, the design and significance of maritime flags flying on ships in Tunis are unknown. However, various sources have been able to distinguish certain similarities among the flags: they were designed with a crescent-oriented shape in the presence of the colors blue, green, red, and white.[1] Thereafter, and until the early 19th century, the flag was composed of horizontal blue, red and green stripes, which are the colors of the ruling Husainid dynasty. This kind of flag with multiple bands and irregular contours floated on top of ships all along the coast of North Africa; similar flags with different colors and arrangements were also used in Africa.[1]

According to Ottfried Neubecker,[2] the Bey of Tunis also had his own flag. This flag was most likely a simple personal banner of the ruler,[3] as it floated above the Bardo Palace, the Citadel of Tunis, on navy ships, and also in the center of the coat of arms in Tunisia. It was used at a number of public ceremonies until the abolition of the monarchy and proclamation of Republic on 25 July 1957.[2][4]

Believed to have been introduced by Hussein II, although some sources, such as Abdel-Wahab, claim that it was in use three centuries earlier,[3] the flag was rectangular in shape and divided into nine stripes, the middle one green and double the size of all other bands, while the others alternated between yellow and red.[2] Featured in the center of the green stripe was the Zulfiqar, the legendary Islamic sword of Ali, with the blade in white and the hilt multicolored. The red and yellow stripes each contained five equidistant symbols, whose order was alternated between each stripe. These symbols were divided into two categories: one red six-sided star voided with a disk of a different color in the center—either a red star and green disk or a white star and blue disk—, and a large disk voided in its lower right by a small disk of different color, with the combination being either a small red disk within a larger blue disk or a small yellow disk within a larger green disk.[2] The first yellow stripe contains three red stars and two blue disks. The second stripe, red in color, contains three green disksand two white stars. The third stripe (second yellow one) is identical to the first, with the exception that the star in its center is white, while the fourth stripe (second white one) is identical to the 2nd stripe.[2]

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  Flag of the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171)
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  Flag of the Hafsid dynasty Sultanate (1230–1574)
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  Variant flag of the Hafsid dynasty Sultanate (15th century)
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  Flag of the Eyalet of Tunis (1574–1705)
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  Flag of the Husainid dynasty (1705–1827)
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  Flag of the Beylik of Tunis (1827–1881)

The naval ensign of the Tunisian navy from the 1830s, and national flag of Tunisia from 1959 to 1999, with a slightly thinner crescent than in the current design.

Several Muslim countries along the south coast of the Mediterranean Sea used a plain red naval flag.[5] After the destruction of the Tunisian naval division at the Battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827,[6] the sovereign Husainid Dynasty leader Hussein II decided to create a flag to use for the fleet of Tunisia, to distinguish it from other fleets. There are some discrepancies over the date of the flag's adoption, as the government states that it was adopted in 1831,[7] while other sources like Siobhan Ryan's Ultimate Pocket Flags of the World claim that it was adopted in 1835.[8][9]

During the era of the French protectorate in Tunisia, The Tunisian flag has not changed.[10][11] However, according to an article in the Flag Bulletin publishing in Fall 2000, for a short period of time during the French protectorate, the flag of France was placed in the canton (upper left) of the Tunisian flag. In the same vein, vexillologist Whitney Smith stated that the addition of the French flag was "modification of the unofficial Tunisian national flag, used for a few years".[12][13] He added:

Tunisia, a French protectorate, retained its national flag on land and at sea. Nevertheless, in the late 19th Century or early 20th Century an unofficial version of the flag was used with the tricolor canton. In 1925 a formal proposal was made to adopt that flag as official, but no action was taken. That flag, featured on the cover of this issue [of the Flag Bulletin], does not appear to have been illustrated in any vexillological source.[14]

Confusion arose when an issue of the French daily newspaper Le Petit Journal, published on 24 July 1904 on the occasion of the bey of Tunis's visit to France, reproduced an illustration showing the flag used while he was visiting the Hôtel de Ville, Paris.[15] Ivan Sache of Flags of the World claimed that this flag design, which hadn't been seen earlier, may have been inaccurate, suggesting that the journalist might not have been at the affair or he had reproduced a drawing of the wrong flag.[16]

Flag planned for the "Arab Islamic Republic" according to the description in a work by Tahar Belkhodja.

The union project between Tunisia and Libya in 1973–1974 almost led to the unification of Tunisia and the Libyan Arab Republic. After a meeting between Habib Bourguiba and Muammar Gaddafi, Tunisian Foreign Minister Mohamed Masmoudi read a joint statement:

The two countries will form a single republic, the Arab Islamic Republic, with a single constitution, a single flag, a single president, a single army and the same executive, legislative and judicial bodies. A referendum will be organized on 18 January 1974

But, faced with the opposition that arose both within the regime and abroad, Bourguiba was forced to backtrack and abandon the project on the pretext of the unconstitutionality of the referendum. The flag itself would have taken the colors of the flag of Libya, floating between 1972 and 1977, but the falcon present in the center of this same flag would have been replaced by the star and the Tunisian red crescent, such as the treaty of l union describes it:

Flag: the Tunisian star and crescent in the middle of white, then red and black