Flag of Brunei

An overview

The national flag of Brunei is a yellow field crossed by two diagonal stripes — white above, black below, running from the upper hoist toward the lower fly — with the national crest in red at the center. The ratio is 1:2. It is a flag assembled in three layers over six centuries, and every layer names someone.

The yellow was the Sultan’s own standard, the color of royalty in the Malay world, in the years when Brunei had no national flag at all. The stripes came in 1906, when the agreement with Britain that installed a Resident called for a flag: white for the Pengiran Bendahara and black for the Pengiran Pemancha, the two wazirs who signed beside the Sultan. The crest came with the Constitution of September 29, 1959 — the crescent of Islam with the motto, the parasol of the monarchy, the wings, the hands, and the name Brunei Darussalam.

The flag did not change when Brunei declined to join Malaysia in 1963, nor at independence on January 1, 1984. It is one of the few national flags that is older than its nation’s sovereignty.

Official color specification

No Bruneian instrument fixes the shades. The yellow is the bright royal yellow of the Malay courts — lighter than the gold of most flags — and the red is the crest’s alone; the values below are those the standard references carry.

Symbolism and meaning

The government explains the flag in three parts — the field, the stripes, and the crest — and each part is a person or an office before it is an idea.

The motto on the crescent — “Always render service with God’s guidance” — is the state’s, and appears on the emblem, the flag and the coins alike.

Design and official specification

The official flag is 36 inches by 72 — 1:2. The two stripes are parallelograms, cut by the flag’s edges as they run from the upper hoist toward the lower fly, the white nearly twice the width of the black; the crest sits at the exact center, its lettering in yellow. Hung vertically, the flag is rotated so that the crest reads upright and the stripes keep their direction.

How the flag evolved

A sultan’s standard, two stripes for two ministers, and a crest that came with a constitution — the flag’s story in three moves, and not one change since 1959.

1300s

The sultan's yellow

For six centuries Brunei had no national flag. The Sultan and his wazirs flew personal standards, and the Sultan's was plain yellow — the color of royalty across the Malay world, flown by a sultanate that at its height in the 16th century ruled the coasts of Borneo and the southern Philippines.

1906

Two ministers, two stripes

Brunei had been a British protectorate since 1888; the agreement of 1905–06 installed a British Resident and, with it, the need for a flag in the international manner. The yellow standard took two diagonal stripes — white for the Pengiran Bendahara, black for the Pengiran Pemancha, the two chief ministers who signed the agreement beside Sultan Hashim — so that the flag recorded the signatories' solidarity.

1959

The crest, and a constitution

On September 29, 1959, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III promulgated Brunei's first written constitution, and the national crest was placed at the center of the flag in red — the design credited to Pengiran Muhammad Yusuf, who also wrote the words of the anthem. The flag did not change when Brunei declined to join Malaysia in 1963, nor at independence on January 1, 1984; it has flown unaltered for 67 years.

Who designed the Bruneian flag?

The 1959 form is credited to Pengiran Muhammad Yusuf — Pengiran Haji Mohamed Yusuf bin Pengiran Abdul Rahim, the court poet and official who also wrote the words of the national anthem, “Allah Peliharakan Sultan,” in 1947. He placed the red crest at the center of a flag the state had flown since 1906, and that flag had no named designer: its yellow was the Sultan’s standard, and its stripes the colors of the two wazirs, laid across it when a treaty required a flag.

The crest itself descends from the emblem of Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin’s reign, revised for the Constitution of 1959 under Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III, the architect of modern Brunei.

February 23

Brunei keeps no flag day. The flag’s great day is National Day, February 23 — the anniversary of the public celebration of independence in 1984 — when thousands parade before the Sultan on the Taman Haji Sir Muda Omar Ali Saifuddien in the capital and the flag flies from every building. The flag’s own anniversary is September 29, the day of the Constitution of 1959; the Sultan’s birthday, July 15, is the other day of flags.

Legal status and display rules

Brunei has no single flag statute. The Constitution of 1959 fixed the crest and reduced the flags flown in the state; the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act protects the flag and the crest; the government’s protocol governs their display. The rules are tabled here.

Half-mast and mourning

Mourning is the Sultan’s to declare.

Things you may not know

The stripes are signatures. Few flags record a single diplomatic event; the white and black stand for the two ministers who signed the 1906 agreement with Britain, in the order and the colors of their offices.

The flag is older than independence by 25 years. Adopted in 1959 as the flag of a British-protected state, it flew unchanged through the refusal to join Malaysia and through independence in 1984 — the same cloth for three constitutional lives.

The crest spells the state. The banner beneath the crescent carries the country’s formal name, Brunei Darussalam, in Jawi — the flag names the nation as well as showing it.