Flag of Kenya

How to read it

Article 9 of the Constitution of Kenya (2010) names the national flag as a national symbol, and the Second Schedule describes it: three major stripes of equal width, black, red and green from the top, separated by narrow white stripes, with a symmetrical shield and white spears in the centre. The schedule’s drawing gives the proportions, and a note says its dimensions are proportional, not measurements. Norway’s Store norske leksikon gives the flag’s proportions as 2:3 and dates its adoption to 12 December 1963, the day of independence. The schedule names no shades.

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Telling it from South Sudan’s flag

South Sudan’s flag has the same three stripes in the same order, black, red and green, with the same narrow white stripes between them. South Sudan’s has a sky-blue triangle along the pole holding a yellow five-pointed star, and nothing in the centre; Kenya’s has no triangle, and the shield and crossed spears sit in the middle. South Sudan’s flag is also longer, 1:2 against Kenya’s 2:3, by Store norske leksikon’s figures.

Malawi’s flag is black, red and green from the top too, but without white stripes, and it has a red rising sun in the black stripe.

The shield and spears

Norway’s Store norske leksikon and Denmark’s national encyclopedia, Lex, both describe the shield as a Maasai shield in red, black and white, set in front of two crossed spears. Lex says the shield and spears stand for the defence of the freedom that was won. The Kenyan embassy in Stockholm describes the same shield and spears on the coat of arms as a symbol of unity and the defence of freedom.

How the colours were chosen in 1963

The flag grew out of party flags. John Kamau, writing in the Daily Nation from the cabinet papers, says the flags of the two main parties were alike: three horizontal bands, black and green in both, with red as the third colour for KANU and white for KADU. A committee led by the minister Dawson Mwanyumba merged the two and put white stripes between the main colours. The white came from KADU and at first stood for a multi-racial society; the cabinet changed its meaning to “unity and peace” and dropped gold stripes that had also been proposed. The cabinet’s meanings for the rest were “people of Kenya” for the black, “struggle for freedom” for KANU’s red, and “agriculture and natural resource” for the green.

The readings still differ in the details. Lex explains the red as showing that an African’s blood is the same colour as a European’s, where the embassy speaks of the blood shed for independence.