A capital letter A, its legs extending slightly past a surrounding circle, used internationally as a symbol of anarchism.
Also known as: Circle-A, Anarchy symbol, Circled A
Created in April 1964 by the Jeunesses Libertaires of Paris as a deliberately faction-neutral shared marker for the anarchist movement — well documented by a peer-reviewed academic source including a creator interview, though a widely repeated 'Anarchy is Order' (Proudhon) reading is a disputed retrospective gloss, not the documented original design intent. Classified here as a political-philosophy symbol; a narrower, separately-scoped association with black-bloc property-destruction tactics at some protests is not evidence the symbol is independently classified as a hate or extremist symbol.
Represents anarchism as a political philosophy — opposition to hierarchy and the state — with the 'A' from the Greek 'anarchos' ('without rulers') and the circle commonly read as unity across the international anarchist movement.
Presented as the symbol's primary, mainstream political-philosophy meaning — see the narrower, separately-scoped incident association below, which is not evidence this is a hate or extremist symbol.
Contexts: Political movements
Created in April 1964 by the Jeunesses Libertaires (Libertarian Youth) of Paris — concept by Tomás Ibáñez, graphic design by René Darras — first appearing in the group's bulletin; deliberately designed to be simple, quick to draw, and not tied to any single anarchist faction. Spread from France (1964–66) to Italy (from 1968) and became internationally recognised by the early-to-mid 1970s, later absorbed into punk subculture.
Paris, France (origin); international spread from late 1960s · 1964–1970s · Contexts: Political movements, History
A widely repeated alternative account traces the symbol to Proudhon's maxim 'Anarchy is Order', reading the circle as 'Order' rather than unity — this account gives the symbol a 19th-century philosophical lineage, but other sources treat it as a retrospective, widely-circulated gloss layered onto a symbol whose documented creation was a practical 1964 design exercise, not evidence the symbol was designed with this meaning.
Both the 1964 design account and the Proudhon/'Anarchy is Order' gloss circulate in sources — presented as an open disagreement, not resolved in favour of either.
The symbol has appeared at protests involving property destruction (e.g. the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, and reported at 2011 London and 2020–2021 Portland demonstrations), where some official assessments describe circle-A imagery as associated with 'anti-government extremist' activity in those specific incidents — a narrower, incident-specific usage that anarchist-aligned sources describe as a defensive response to policing rather than offense-first violence. The ADL's Hate on Display database, the standard hate-symbol reference, does not independently list circle-A as a hate symbol.
This is a narrower, contested, incident-specific association, not the symbol's primary or majority meaning — it should not be read as reclassifying the symbol as extremist.
Contexts: News, Political movements
A capital letter A, its legs extending slightly beyond a circle drawn around it.
Both enclose a single capital letter in a ring. The resemblance is one of construction only; the two symbols are unrelated in meaning, origin and field of use.