What the 🇧🇩 emoji means
🇧🇩 is the flag of Bangladesh: a bottle-green field with a red disc set slightly left of centre. It was adopted in 1972, shortly after independence.
The red disc represents the sun rising over Bengal, and is also widely understood as honouring those who died in the 1971 Liberation War. The green stands for the land itself - the delta's vegetation - though it is often also read as a reference to the country's Muslim majority.
Why the circle is off-centre
The disc is deliberately positioned closer to the hoist rather than in the middle. This is a practical design choice: when the flag flies, the fabric nearest the pole moves less, so an off-centre disc appears centred to someone looking at it.
The same reasoning shaped the flag's design brief, and it is one of the details that distinguishes it from Japan's 🇯🇵, where the disc is exactly centred.
When people use 🇧🇩
Typical contexts are Independence Day on 26 March, Victory Day on 16 December, International Mother Language Day on 21 February - which originated in Bangladesh - cricket, and Bengali-language content. Bangladeshi creators also use it to mark the language of a post for a mixed audience.
Flags that look similar
- 🇯🇵 Japan - red disc on white, centred.
- 🇵🇼 Palau - yellow disc on light blue, also off-centre.
- 🇱🇦 Laos - white disc on blue with red bands.
Bangladesh is the only one of these with a red disc on green.
