The flag of Turkey (Turkish: Türk bayrağı) has a white crescent moon and a star on a red background. The flag is called Ay Yıldız (literally, moon star) or Alsancak (red banner) in Turkish.The flag has a complex origin since it is an ancient design, and uses the same symbols of the late flag of the Ottoman Empire which was adopted in 1844 with the Tanzimat reforms; though the shape, placement and shade of the color varies. The geometric proportions of the flag were legally standardized with the Turkish Flag Law in 1936