Flag of the Regency of Algiers, Algeria

According to the historian ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Jilali, Aruj Barbarossa liberated Algiers from Spanish control in 1516 and consolidated his rule by raising a symbolic flag composed of green, yellow, and red colours. This early flag signalled a rupture from the Christian power of Spain and laid the foundation for a new Islamic polity. Al-Jilali emphasizes that while Hayreddin Barbarossa was engaged in campaigns elsewhere, Aruj secured the city and adopted this tricolor as a mark of his authority. Historians Ahmed Tewfik El Madani and Othman Kaak add that Aruj became the sole authority in Algiers and “raised his banners of three colours above its walls and castles,” further noting the symbolic assertion of rule by minting coins bearing his emblem and the inscription “Minted in Algiers.” Similarly, the historians Nadir Assari and Mouloud Gaïd confirm that during the Turkish period, the flag consisted of three horizontal silk bands in these colours. The flag’s presence was not limited to the battlefield or palace gates. It also appeared in art and cartography. Tarek Kahlaoui reports that a 1551 Ottoman atlas by Al-Sharafi depicts Algiers under a flag with horizontal red, yellow, and green stripes—a rare early example of Algerian symbolism in Islamic cartography. The red-yellow-green tricolor, though locally adopted by the Barbarossa brothers, likely held layered meanings. As Historian Jeanette M. Fregulia observes, the flag's resemblance to those found in other Ottoman administrative centres suggests a dual identity: an expression of local autonomy within a broader Ottoman imperial context. The flag may have marked the seat of the Pasha, the Sultan’s representative in Algiers, while simultaneously asserting the military and political authority of the Regency itself. One variant was considered a war flag according to Bertrand Dubreuil. Foreign travelers and chroniclers also observed the flag. American prisoner in Algiers in the late 18th century James Leander Cathcart describes the flagstaff on the Dey’s palace, topped with a gilt crescent and used to fly both "the national banners and those of the Ottoman Sultan and the Prophet Muhammad" on Fridays and festivals. 19th century French historian Léon Galibert, cited by Historian Mouloud Kacem Naît Belkacem, describes the "great national flag of Algiers" as consisting of three bands of silk—red, green, and yellow—displayed majestically above the Bab-Azoun gate. According to 19th century French authors, this flag flew from prominent locations across the city throughout the 16th and 17th centuries: over gates like Bab Azoun, atop the Djennina Palace, and across terraces overlooking the sea. The Fondation de la régence d'Alger, a chronicle based on 16th-century Arabic sources, confirms that the standard of red, yellow, and green floated over the Djenina palace—a visual assertion of power visible from land and sea. In his 1887 work L'Algérie qui s'en va, Marius Bernard gives further specificity: the flag’s arrangement featured red at the top, green in the middle, and yellow at the bottom, flown on a long pole “on which the insolent flag of the Regency flew for so long.”