what does this symbol mean?

African flags

The national flags of Africa: what each one shows, what its colours and emblem stand for in the country’s own laws, and how to tell it from the flags that look like it.

Test yourself: African flags quiz

North Africa 6 symbols

West Africa 16 symbols

Central Africa 8 symbols

East Africa 14 symbols

Southern Africa 9 symbols

Across Africa 2 symbols

About african flags

The national flags of Africa, each drawn in the proportions and colours its own law sets, with what its colours and emblem stand for in that country’s constitution or flag law, and who gives the meaning where the law gives none. With them are the Pan-African flag and the flag of the African Union.

The two sets of pan-African colours

Most of these flags use one of two families of colours. The green, yellow and red of many African flags reflect the colours of Ethiopia’s flag, the Brooklyn Museum’s guide to African flags says, and Ethiopia’s resistance to colonial occupation inspired many African nations. Ghana’s flag carries them with a black star, which Ghana’s mission to the United Nations says was taken from the flag of Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line.

The other family is red, black and green, the colours the Universal Negro Improvement Association adopted in 1920. Its catechism of 1921 makes red the blood men must shed for their redemption and liberty, black the race its members belong to, and green the vegetation of the African motherland. The historian Robert Hill names Libya’s, Malawi’s and Kenya’s flags among those that took up the colours, with Ghana’s.

Flags that look alike

Green, gold and red in upright bands is Mali’s flag; Senegal’s is the same with a green star in the centre, the two flags sharing an ancestor in the Mali Federation of 1959. Guinea’s has the colours the other way round, red at the pole, and Cameroon’s puts the red in the middle with a gold star on it.

Blue, yellow and red in upright bands is Chad’s flag, and also Romania’s: the two became alike when Romania took the coat of arms off its flag after 1989.

Orange, white and green upright, orange at the pole, is Côte d’Ivoire’s; Ireland’s has green at the pole, and Niger’s stripes run across, with an orange disc in the white.

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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 13, 2026. How we research