Flag of Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso’s flag is two equal horizontal stripes, red above green, with a yellow five-pointed star in the centre. A guide published by the embassy of Burkina Faso in Paris explains the red as the blood shed by the martyrs of the revolution, the green as the country’s farm wealth, and the star as the ideological guide of the Democratic and Popular Revolution.
How to read it
Article 34 of the constitution of 1991, as revised in 2015, names the flag as the emblem of the nation: a tricolour flag of rectangular, horizontal form, red and green, with a yellow-gold five-pointed star in its centre. The design was set by article 5 of an ordinance signed in Ouagadougou on 2 August 1984, which took effect at midnight on 4 August 1984 and renamed Upper Volta as Burkina Faso: two horizontal stripes of equal size, red above and green below, with a golden five-pointed star on the centre of the line between them. Neither text gives shades or the size of the star, and neither gives the colours a meaning.
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Why the flag changed in 1984
Captain Thomas Sankara led the revolution of 4 August 1983. A year later, on 4 August 1984, the country’s name, flag and motto changed together, in changes meant to break with the colonial past and carry out the aims of the revolution, as Burkina24 describes them. The ordinance gave the motto “la Patrie ou la Mort, nous vaincrons !” (“Homeland or death, we shall overcome!”). The constitution keeps the 1984 flag and gives the motto as “Unité – Progrès – Justice” (unity, progress, justice).
What the red, green and star stand for
The embassy’s guide, revised in 2019, says the red symbolises the blood shed by the martyrs of the revolution to make it victorious and, by extension, all the sacrifices of the Burkinabè people. The green is the symbol of the people’s varied farm wealth and, by extension, of the plenty that will make them happy. The yellow star is the ideological guide of the Democratic and Popular Revolution “in its radiant march”.
Read next
- Next in African flagsFlag of Cape VerdeCape Verde’s flag is blue, with a stripe of white, red and white below the middle and a ring of ten yellow five-pointed stars towards the pole. The ten stars stand for the country’s ten islands and the blue for the sea around them, as the University of Illinois’s International and Area Studies Library explains them; the constitution describes the design and gives it no meaning.
- The same shape in Asian flagsFlag of AzerbaijanAzerbaijan’s flag has three horizontal stripes of equal width, blue, red and green from the top, with a white crescent and a white eight-pointed star in the middle of the red. The President’s office gives the meanings: blue for the Turkic origin of the Azerbaijani people, red for the wish to build a modern society and develop democracy, and green for belonging to Islamic civilisation.
More african flags
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with lines, squares and rectangles or stars.
Sources
- Burkina Faso 1991 (rev. 2015) Constitution, Constitution of Burkina Faso (1991, rev. 2015), Article 34, Constitute Project, Article 34
- Le 4 août 1984, Thomas Sankara rebaptisait la Haute-Volta en Burkina Faso, Burkina24, 4 August 2021 (text of the ordinance of 2 August 1984), Burkina24, Ordinance of 2 August 1984, articles 1, 5 and 6
- Le Burkina Faso, le Pays des Hommes Intègres (Ambassade du Burkina Faso à Paris, révision 2019), Apollinaire Baghnyan, Relations publiques et tourisme, Ambassade du Burkina Faso à Paris, revised 2019, p. 3, Ambassade du Burkina Faso à Paris, p. 3, “Drapeau et armoiries du Burkina Faso”
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 13, 2026. How we research
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