Who designed the UAE flag?
Dubai's government protocol guide identifies Abdulla Mohammed Al Ma'enah as the flag's designer.
Flag of the United Arab Emirates
Its colour palette includes red, green, white, and black.
Current flag
Flag emoji 🇦🇪
United Arab Emirates
Flag facts
Information about the flag’s design, colours and proportions.
- Proportion
- 1:2 height: width
Flag design
- Layout
- Complex layout
- Colours
- Red, green, white, and black
Sources
The United Arab Emirates flag and its four colours
The United Arab Emirates flag combines a red vertical band at the hoist with horizontal green, white and black bands. It was adopted on 2 December 1971, the date the federation was founded.
The four colours belong to the Pan-Arab palette and are often explained through themes such as unity, courage, peace and prosperity. Dubai’s protocol guidance describes these interpretations; they should be attributed to that guidance rather than treated as separate legal definitions for each colour.
Frequently asked questions
Country facts
- Type
- Country
- Name
- United Arab Emirates
- Continent
- Asia
- Capital
- Abu Dhabi
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
- AE
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-3
- ARE
- ISO 3166-1 numeric
- 784
- Top-level domain
- .ae
- Area
- 82,880 km²
- Population
- 11,513,149 (2025)
- Currency
- AED
- Calling code
- +971
Flags with a similar layout
These flags come from the same region and share one or more design characteristics.
Historical flags: United Arab Emirates (1892–)
Images are ordered by the years listed in the collection. A listed year may not be the flag’s official adoption year.
About historical flags
Vexilla's historical flag collection includes former flags associated with present-day countries and territories, as well as flags of states, empires, and other authorities that historically governed them.
A flag's inclusion in a country's historical collection does not necessarily mean that the country was independent at the time or that the flag was its own national flag.
The years shown are based on historical records in the dataset and do not always indicate the date of official adoption. The collection is not exhaustive, and historical usage, territorial coverage, and interpretations may vary.
