Will Iran Change Its Flag?

Iran’s current national flag, adopted in 1980 after the Islamic Revolution, features a green-white-red tricolor with a stylized “Allah” emblem and “Allahu Akbar” repeated 22 times. It replaced the historic Lion and Sun flag used under the Pahlavi monarchy.

Since late 2025, massive protests have revived the Lion and Sun symbol as a powerful sign of opposition. Demonstrators have burned or torn down the official flag, raised the pre-1979 version in cities across Iran, and replaced it at embassies abroad (e.g., London in January 2026). Diaspora rallies worldwide show the same emblem, often alongside calls for regime change.

In a notable digital gesture, X (formerly Twitter) updated its Iran flag emoji to a modern Lion and Sun design in January 2026, amplifying the symbol globally—even on Iranian state-linked accounts.

As of March 2, 2026, no official change is happening. The regime, despite Supreme Leader Khamenei’s death on February 28, 2026, in U.S.-Israeli strikes, still flies its flag and views the Lion and Sun as a direct threat to its identity.

A formal redesign would require regime collapse or major reform, which is possible amid the ongoing unrest, but uncertain. Opposition groups disagree: some want the Lion and Sun restored, others a completely new design.

For now, two flags coexist: the official one on government buildings, and the Lion and Sun in protesters’ hands and on screens worldwide. The real change has already begun symbolically. The official one depends on Iran’s political future.