The star on Turkey’s national flag has five points.
Turkey’s flag shows a white five-pointed star beside a white crescent on a red field. The star-and-crescent design is commonly known in Turkish as Ay Yıldız, meaning “moon star,” and the flag is also called Al Bayrak, or “red flag.”
The motif has Ottoman roots. A white star and crescent on red appeared on Ottoman flags in the 18th or early 19th century, and the design was formally introduced in 1844. After the Turkish Republic was established in 1923, it retained the Ottoman-era flag design.
The star’s five points are sometimes confused with stars on other national flags or with decorative versions of the Turkish emblem. Turkey’s proportions and exact construction were standardized by the Turkish Flag Law of 29 May 1936. A later flag law, enacted in 1983, continued the legal framework governing its production and use.