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Ankara (Metropolitan Municipality, Turkey)

Flag of Ankara - Image by Jens Pattke, 11 November 2012

Flag of Ankara
Universities in Ankara
- Ankara University (Ankara Üniversitesi)
- Bilkent University (Bilkent Üniversitesi)
- Middle East Technical University (Orta Doğu Teknik †niversitesi)

See also:

Flag of Ankara

In Turkey the Governor has to approve any change of the flag. According to Agence France Presse, the Governor of Ankara has announced on 4 July 1995 that he will confiscate all the flags with the new town arms on it if they are hoisted. The Town Council of Ankara recently changed the flag, replacing the Hettite sun by a mosque. The change in the flag was proposed by the Moslim fundamentalists members of the Town Council. A protest campaign against the new flag was launched by some inhabitants of Ankara.

Jos Poels, 12 July 1995

In the meantime, the Metropolitan Municipality of Ankara uses the flag with the mosque everywhere. The protest campaign continues but the Mayor does not want to change the emblem. The left parties claim that it is illegal to use the emblem but the Mayor has the power. I think the Municipality will continue using the current emblem unless a new Mayor from a different party wins the next elections.

Onur Özgün, 17 November 2001

Universities in Ankara

Ankara University

Flag of Ankara University - Image by Eugene Ipavec, 23 July 2010

Ankara University was established in 1946 and folded into were the pre- existing Faculties of Law (1925), Humanities (1935), Science (1943) and Medicine (1945). Later on were incorporated the Faculties of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine (1933, as the Higher Institute of Agriculture), Divinity (1949), Political Science (1950), Pharmacy (1960), Dentistry (1963), Educational Sciences (1965), Communication (1965), Health Education (1996, renamed Health Sciences in 2007) and Engineering (2001, splitting from the Faculty of Science).
In 2010, Ankara University catered 30,000 students and more than 1,710 faculty members.

The flag of Ankara University (photo) is blue with the university's emblem, all white, in the middle.

The emblem of the university is made of the golden Sun Disc placed on a blue disc surrounded by a blue ring outlined in gold and charged with the name of the university and its founding year, 1946, all in gold. On the flag, the emblem is all white.
The Sun Disc is shown and described as follows on the university's website:

The symbol of Ankara University is the Sun Disc. This symbol is commonly regarded as belonging to the Hittite civilization and usually connotes Ankara and Anatolia.
After its discovery, it was first used as its symbol by the Faculty of Humanities, and later was adopted as the symbol of Ankara University after its establishment. Prof. Dr. Aykut Çınaroğlu, a retired member of the Department of Protohistory & Pre-Asia within the Faculty of Humanities explains that the Sun Disc was unearthed during the excavations that were started in 1935 under the direction of Atatürk, and in fact the symbol belongs to the Hattis from the pre-Hittite period: "The Sun Disc is made of bronze, and was commonly used over 4,250 years ago in religious as well as in other ceremonies. Just as it was used by the Ottoman Janissary Band, it was used to produce a sound when it was rattled, and this would affect the crowd by making them attentive. The circle which forms the perimeter of the disc represents either the earth or the sun. At the bottom, there are two horn-like protrusions which in fact are not representative of horns, although there is no clear agreement as to what they represent. The protrusions at the top, on the other hand represent fecundity, and the procreation of nature. The birds, also symbolize fecundity and the freedom of nature. The fact that this was a sun disc was understood after the discovery of a similar artifact shaped like the sun and beaming light, and all similar artifacts were called sun discs thereafter". Prof. Dr. Çınaroğlu stresses the point that the disc is definitely not a Hittite artifact. He explains that the disc belongs to the earliest of Anatolian civilizations whose name is known, the Hattis, and it is wrongly interpreted as being Hittite. According to Pr. Çınaroğlu, the sun disc was made and used approximately 300 years before the arrival of the Hittites in Anatolia. The Hattis were the most ancient of people speaking an Asiatic language in Anatolia, a group which also has influenced the Turkish language. Pr. Çınaroğlu says that the sun disc was discovered inside a tomb of a Hatti chieftain in Alacahöyük and is to be found nowhere else but Alacahöyük, and also that the Hatti kings were buried in funeral ceremonies typically with 4-5 such symbols of similar design.

Eugene Ipavec & Ivan Sache, 1 November 2010

Bilkent University

Flag of the Bilkent University, horizontal and vertical versions - Images by Ivan Sache, 17 February 2007

Quoting the online presentation of the University:

Bilkent University was founded on 20 October 1984 by Ihsan Dogramaci, through the joint resolution of Ihsan Dogramaci Education Foundation, Ihsan Dogramaci Science and Research Foundation and Ihsan Dogramaci Health Foundation. The establishment of this private university was later approved by an Act of Parliament. The aim was to create a center of excellence in higher education and research. The name "Bilkent" exemplifies the founder's aim, since it is an acronym of bilim kenti, Turkish for "city of science and knowledge".
It had long been an objective of the founder to establish a private university distinguished by its high quality education and research. The founder, himself an Academician by profession, had earlier contributed to the establishment of numerous public institutions of higher learning and served as Rector of Ankara University, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Middle East Technical University and founder and first Rector of Hacettepe University.
In October 1986 Bilkent University admitted its first students. That year there were 386 undergraduate and graduate students. Currently there are over 10,000 students in nine Faculties, two four-year Professional Schools, two two-year Vocational Schools and the School of English Language plus six graduate Schools (called Institutes). Among them are foreign students from 72 countries. With funds from the endowments provided by the founder, the university each year awards full scholarships to over 2,500 students of high academic achievement. Each year, more than 1,600,000 high-school graduates take the national examination to enter the 53 state and 25 private universities in Turkey. Bilkent gets many of the very best of these students. For example, in the 2005 examination, 32 of the top 100 scorers chose Bilkent.
The faculty is comprised of an academic staff from 43 different countries. Most of them were working in prominent universities in North America and Europe when they received offers from Bilkent University. According to ISI Citation Indexes, Bilkent continues to be first in Turkey in number of published papers per faculty member and ranks high internationally.

The flag of the Bilkent University is shown on a picture of the Bilken Symphony Orchestra playing during the 2005 graduation ceremony. The flag is hung vertically on the back wall together with the Turkish national flag, flanking a portrait of Ataturk. The flag is horizontally divided red-blue (apparently 1:2) with the emblem of the University in a white disk overall.
The emblem of the University is shown on several pages of the University website, for instance on the pages of the Computer Engineering Department. The emblem is a blue shield with a red border; inside, a red rising sun forms several white rays. A red rectangular scroll with BILKENT / UNIVERSITY in white letters is placed above the sun, which is itself charged with VERITAS in white letters.There is another red scroll below the shield, made of three parts charged with SCIENCE, ART, TECHNOLOGY, respectively, in white letters. The writings in English are not surprising because all lectures at the University are given in English except those on the Turkish Law.
However, on the aforementioned flag, the letterings in the scroll below the shield are in Turkish and not in English. The matching writings are BILKENT / UNIVERSITESI - GERÇEK - BILIM - SANAT - TEKNIK.
The vertical flag is also used outdoors.
Another picture of the graduation ceremony shows the horizontal version of the University flag and confirms the blue colour, which was not sure from the picture of the vertical flag. The picture shows other flags, maybe faculty or student organisation's flags.

Ivan Sache, 17 February 2007

Middle East Technical University

Flag of the METU, as seen on 29 April 2014 (TV images) - Image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 April 2014

Middle East Technical University - METU (Orta Doğu Teknik †niversitesi - ODTÜ), established in 1956 in Ankara, is one of the biggest universities in Turkey.
The swallow-tailed banner of METU is vertically divided white-red with the university"s emblem shifted to the top. The emblem of METU displays two crescents in couterchanged colours facing one another and thus forming letter "O".

Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 April 2014