Flag of Angola
Angola’s flag is red over black with a yellow emblem in the centre: part of a cogwheel, a machete and a five-pointed star. Its constitution says the red is the blood shed by Angolans under colonial oppression, in the liberation struggle and in defence of the country, and the black is the African continent; the cogwheel stands for workers and industry, the machete for peasants, farming and the armed struggle, the star for international solidarity and progress, and their yellow for the country’s wealth.
How to read it
Article 18 of the Constitution of 2010 makes the flag one of the three national symbols, with the emblem and the anthem, and keeps the ones adopted when independence was proclaimed on 11 November 1975; Annex I describes it. The Ministry of Territorial Administration’s manual of the national symbols (2021) fixes the proportion at 3:2, the halves red and black, the cogwheel segment with nine teeth, the machete laid across it slanting with its handle to the right and its curved blade to the left, and a five-pointed star. The rules on using the flag are in Law 14/18 of 29 October 2018.
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How the emblem is drawn
The manual builds the flag on a grid of three equal parts across and two down. The emblem is placed from one tooth of the cogwheel, which sits on the line between the red and the black, half on each. Its colours are Angola red (Pantone 186 C), Angola yellow (Pantone 116 C) and Angola black (Process Black C); the manual calls the shades bright red and golden yellow. For small sizes there is a simplified official version.
The flag proposed in 2003
On 27 August 2003 the Constitutional Commission of the National Assembly, then drafting a new constitution, adopted a design for a new flag, the Angola Press Agency reported: five stripes, dark blue, white, red, white and dark blue, with a yellow sun of 15 rays in the red, inspired by the rock paintings of Tchitundo-Hulu in Namibe province. The commission kept the emblem. The constitution adopted in 2010 kept the 1975 flag.
Read next
- Next in African flagsFlag of BotswanaBotswana’s flag is light blue with a black band across the middle, edged with thin white stripes. Botswana’s government says the blue is the sky and water, tied to the national motto Pula, “let there be rain”, and the white, black and white show the racial harmony of the people and the many races that make up the nation.
- The same shape in Flags of territories and home nationsFlag of Puerto RicoPuerto Rico’s flag has five horizontal stripes, three red and two white, and a blue equilateral triangle at the pole holding a white five-pointed star. Its makers in 1895 left no explanation; Puerto Rico’s government reads the three colours and the triangle’s three points, as on Cuba’s flag, as the republican ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.
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The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with lines, squares and rectangles or stars.
Sources
- Angola 2010 Constitution, Constitution of the Republic of Angola, 2010, article 18 and Annex I (English translation), Constitute Project, Article 18; Annex I
- Símbolos Nacionais da República de Angola (manual, 2021), República de Angola, Manual dos Símbolos Nacionais, version V01.05.2021.D, Bandeira Nacional, pp. 10–18, Ministério da Administração do Território (Angola), Bandeira Nacional: descrição e significado; grelha de construção; paleta cromática
- New National Flag and old Insignia (Angola, 2003), SADOCC news 2003-239, from Angola Press Agency (ANGOP), 27 August 2003, SADOCC – Southern Africa Documentation and Cooperation Centre, Whole item
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 13, 2026. How we research
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