Afghanistan: flag, capital and map

This black-red-green vertical tricolour, charged at its centre with a white emblem (a mosque, sheaves of wheat, the Shahada), was the flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2004 to 2021, continuing a pattern going back to 1928 under King Amanullah Khan.

Black is said to recall the country’s dark 19th-century subjection to British influence, red the blood shed in the wars of independence ended by the 1919 treaty, and green the hope of a prosperous Islamic future — in 2021 the Taliban replaced it with their white banner bearing the Shahada.