Adoption of Azerbaijan Flag

Date: November 9, 1918 • Location: Ujar, Azerbaijan

The government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic adopted a tricolour national flag (pictured), which is again in use today, with slight modifications, by the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan.

The Republic of Azerbaijan, better known in historiography as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, was the first secular democratic republic in the Turkic and Muslim worlds. The ADR was founded by the Azerbaijani National Council in Tiflis on 28 May 1918 after the collapse of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and ceased to exist on 28 April 1920. Its established borders were with Russia to the north, the Democratic Republic of Georgia to the north-west, the Republic of Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. It had a population of around 3 million. Ganja was the temporary capital of the Republic as Baku was under Bolshevik control.