Why Is Nepal's Flag the Only One That Isn't a Rectangle?

Look through every national flag on Earth and you'll find exactly one exception to the rectangle rule: Nepal. Its flag is made of two stacked triangular pennants, a shape historically used by Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in the region for ceremonial banners, long before the idea of a single "national flag" existed.

The two pennants represent the Himalayas and the two major religions of Nepal, Hinduism and Buddhism. The upper pennant carries a stylized moon, and the lower one carries a stylized sun — together symbolizing the hope that Nepal will last as long as the sun and moon.

The current design was formally standardized in 1962, when Nepal adopted a new constitution and fixed the flag's proportions mathematically, using a geometric construction method rather than free-hand curves. Before that, similar pennant-shaped flags had existed in slightly varied forms for centuries.

Because most flag conventions and international sporting events assume a rectangular flag (for displaying on a pole, printing on merchandise, or showing in a grid of national flags), Nepal's flag is often shown inside an invisible rectangular border in these contexts — but the true flag, legally and symbolically, is the pennant shape alone.