Flag of Eritrea
Eritrea’s flag is divided by a red triangle running from the whole pole edge to a point at the fly, with green above and blue below, and a gold olive branch inside a gold wreath on the red. Eritrea’s Ministry of Information explains the green as the country’s fertility, the blue as the sea and the red as the blood lost in the fight for freedom; the wreath’s 30 leaves count the years of the armed struggle.
How to read it
Article 4 of the Constitution of Eritrea, ratified on 23 May 1997, says the flag shall have green, red and blue colours with golden olive leaves, and leaves its detailed description to law. The flag is the flag of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), proposed at the front’s First Organizational Congress in 1977, with the front’s yellow star replaced by the wreath and upright olive branch of Eritrea’s flag of 1952. It flew as the national flag when Eritrea declared its independence on 24 May 1993, according to the Ministry of Information.
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The olive wreath of 1952
The wreath comes from the flag Eritrea adopted in 1952, under its federation with Ethiopia: a blue field with a green upright olive wreath and a single branch inside it. The Ministry of Information writes that Mohammed Omer Hakito had proposed a light blue flag with seven stars, and that the Eritrean Parliament, after fierce debate, voted unanimously for the blue flag with the olive wreath. The blue and green flag was still used as the “flag of liberation” until the EPLF adopted its own in 1977. The Brooklyn Museum’s guide to African flags also notes the wreath around an olive branch from the 1952 flag.
Counting the leaves
The gold wreath has 12 leaves on each side and six more on the upright branch, 30 in all, for the 30 years of the armed struggle for liberation, the Ministry of Information says. It reads the shapes too: the red triangle narrows from the hoist for the declining amount of blood spilt for independence, while the green and blue triangles widen for growing fertility and land bounty and for the marine resources and clear skies. On the EPLF’s flag, the Ministry adds, the yellow star stood for mineral resources and its five points for equality, unity, liberty, justice and prosperity.
Read next
- Next in African flagsFlag of EthiopiaEthiopia’s flag is green, yellow and red in equal horizontal stripes with a blue disc in the centre holding a yellow star of equal lines with yellow rays. Ethiopia’s Flag Proclamation makes the green labour, fertility and development, the yellow hope, justice and equality, and the red sacrifice and heroism for freedom and equality; the blue disc is peace and the star the unity of Ethiopia’s nations, nationalities and peoples.
- The same shape in Asian flagsFlag of the PhilippinesThe Philippine flag has a blue stripe over a red one and a white equilateral triangle at the pole, holding a golden sun with eight rays and a golden five-pointed star in each corner. The flag law fixes the design without a meaning; the meaning usually given, as in the Daily Tribune and Store norske leksikon, is the sun’s eight rays for the first eight provinces to rise against Spanish rule and the three stars for Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.
More african flags
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles, squares and rectangles or triangles.
Sources
- Constitution of Eritrea, 1997, Constitution of Eritrea of 1997, Article 4 (English translation), Constitute Project, Article 4
- The High Hoisted Banner Of Pride And Glory, Shabait (Eritrea Ministry of Information), 1 June 2012, Eritrea Ministry of Information, Main text
- Africa Fashion: flags of Africa (exhibition infographic), Portland Art Museum, Africa Fashion exhibition flag infographic; design and narrative courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum, Portland Art Museum, Eritrea
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 13, 2026. How we research
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