Saudi Arabia: Royal Standard

Last modified: 2008-01-19 by ian macdonald
Keywords: shahada | sword | swords:2 | royal flag | tree (palm) |
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| 2:3 | image by António Martins & Joseph McMillan, 28 August 2006

On this page:

• About the Saudi Royal Standard
• Previous Design

See also:

• Saudi Arabia: Main Page
• Saudi Arabia: Index of all pages

About the Royal Standard

The description of the royal standard given in Article 2 of Cabinet Decision 101, dated 8 March 1973 (confirmed hy Royal Decree of 15 March 1973), reads as follows:

The special flag of His Majesty the King, hereinafter called the Royal Standard and exclusive to His Majesty's use, shall be the National Flag with the state arms, i.e. crossed swords and palm tree, embroidered in gold and silver threads, in its lower hoist canton.

Album des Pavillons [pay00] incorrectly shows this flag with the state arms in the upper hoist, rather than the lower hoist as provided by the royal decree. A photograph of a recent meeting between King Abdullah and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shows that the lower hoist is correct.
Joseph McMillan, 28 August 2006

Previous Design of the Saudi Royal Standard

A previous royal standard with two swords was probably adopted by 1939, as it was reported by Neubecker [neu39]. In 1955 [1958?—Ed.], Flags of All Nations [hms58] showed this same flag as the royal standard in ratio 1:1. The next royal standard [the present one] was adopted 1973. A royal standard shown in Les drapeaux de l'Islam, [lux01], dated 1926-1973, is dubious (I only know it from this one source).
Jaume Ollé, 14 April 2003

Several flags reported in Lux-Wurm's Les drapeaux de l'Islam are completely wrong or dubious. The presentation of the religious background seems to be correct, but the vexillological content of the book is very poor.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2003

This is from Carr's Flags of the World 1961 [car61], pp. 244-245, about Saudi Arabian flags:

The Royal Standard ... is the same as the National Flag, except for the size of [the] field ... The Royal Standard is 250 by 230 centimetres .... In passing, it should perhaps be recorded that Saudi Arabian flags sometimes have one white sword instead of two in saltire.