The countries that have changed their flag since 2000
National flags change less often than governments, but they do change. Since 2000, Georgia, Lesotho, Iraq, Myanmar, Libya, Mauritania, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Syria have all adopted a new or altered flag, and Malawi changed its flag in 2010 and changed it back two years later.
Several followed a change of regime. Others were a government deciding the old design no longer said the right thing. The list below counts changes you can see. Several countries have also redrawn their flags in ways few people would notice, such as North Korea, which changed the proportions of its flag in March 2026 but kept the design.
Flags changed since 2000
| COUNTRY | YEAR | WHAT CHANGED |
|---|---|---|
| Georgia | 2004 | Five crosses replaced the dark red flag of 1991 |
| Lesotho | 2006 | A Basotho hat replaced a shield and weapons |
| Iraq | 2008 | The three stars removed, the script redrawn |
| Myanmar | 2010 | New design under the 2008 constitution |
| Libya | 2011 | The 1951 flag restored after Gaddafi |
| Mauritania | 2017 | Red stripes added top and bottom |
| Afghanistan | 2021 | Taliban white flag replaced the tricolour |
| Kyrgyzstan | 2023 | The sun's wavy rays made straight |
| Syria | 2025 | The independence flag made official |
After a revolution or a fall
Georgia’s five-cross flag was an opposition symbol before it was a national one. Parliament had voted for it in 1999, but President Shevardnadze did not sign the change. Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement took it up, it became a symbol of the Rose Revolution, and parliament adopted it on 14 January 2004, seven weeks after Shevardnadze resigned. The design goes back to a banner of the medieval Kingdom of Georgia.
Libya went backwards. The flag it uses now was the flag of the Kingdom of Libya from 1951, dropped after Gaddafi’s coup in 1969. From 1977 Libya flew a plain green field, the only national flag of one colour with no design on it. After Gaddafi fell in 2011, the National Transitional Council brought back the royal flag.
Syria did the same thing in 2025. The green, white and black flag with three red stars was the flag of Syria’s independence period, and the opposition carried it from late 2011. After Assad fell in December 2024 the new authorities used it at once, and the Constitutional Declaration of 13 March 2025 made it the national flag in place of the red, white and black one with two green stars.
Afghanistan has two flags in use. The Taliban adopted a white flag with the shahada in black on 15 August 2021, the day they took Kabul. The black, red and green tricolour of the former republic is still the one at the United Nations and at the Olympics, and many Afghan embassies still fly it.
Removing what a regime had added
Iraq changed its flag in two steps. In 2004 the words Allahu akbar, which Saddam Hussein had added in his own handwriting, were redrawn in Kufic script. In January 2008 parliament removed the three green stars, which Saddam had reinterpreted as the Ba’ath Party motto and which many Kurds associated with the Anfal campaign against them.
New designs by law
Myanmar’s yellow, green and red flag with a white star was set out in the 2008 constitution and raised on 21 October 2010. The authorities ordered the old flags burned.
Lesotho changed its flag on 4 October 2006, the 40th anniversary of independence. The flag of 1987 had a shield, a spear and a club. The new one has a black mokorotlo, the conical Basotho hat, chosen to show a country at peace inside its borders and with South Africa.
Mauritania added a red stripe along the top and bottom of its green flag in 2017, for the blood of those who fought for independence from France. The change went to a referendum on 5 August 2017, where over 86% voted for it, and the new flag was first raised on 28 November, Independence Day.
Kyrgyzstan made the smallest change on the list. In December 2023 it straightened the wavy rays of the sun on its flag. Members of parliament had argued that the old sun looked like a sunflower, a word that in Kyrgyz can describe someone who changes sides for personal gain.
Changed and changed back
On 29 July 2010 Malawi replaced the rising sun on its flag with a full white sun and reordered the stripes to red, black and green. The government of Bingu wa Mutharika said the full sun stood for the country’s progress since independence. The flag was unpopular and became known as Bingu’s flag. On 28 May 2012, under Joyce Banda, parliament voted to bring back the independence flag.
A country that voted to keep its flag
New Zealand held two referendums on its flag. In the first, in late 2015, voters picked a black, white and blue silver fern design by Kyle Lockwood as the best alternative. In the second, in March 2016, they chose between that design and the current flag, and kept the current one by 56.73% to 43.27%.
Flags of the World shows Afghanistan with the tricolour, the flag still used at the United Nations.