Flag of Mauritania
Mauritania’s flag is green with a gold crescent and a gold five-pointed star in the centre, and a red stripe along the top and bottom. The red stripes were added in 2017: AFP reported them as standing for the blood shed by the “martyrs of the resistance”, and Mauritania’s deputies praised them as the nation’s recognition of the martyrs who gave their lives to defend the homeland.
How to read it
Article 8 of the constitution, as revised by constitutional referendum law no. 2017-021 of 15 August 2017, makes the flag the national emblem: a crescent and a star in gold on a green field, with a horizontal, rectangular red band on each side. Voters approved the revision in a referendum on 5 August 2017, 85.61 per cent voting yes on a turnout of 53.75 per cent in the provisional results the electoral commission (CENI) announced, and President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz promulgated it on 15 August 2017. The details are in the law describing the flag, which the National Assembly passed on 12 October 2017, and in decree no. 467-2017 of 25 October 2017, as the government’s graphic charter of May 2020 quotes them: the flag is two-thirds as high as it is long; the crescent and star are in the centre, the crescent curving downwards, with the star level with the crescent’s points; each red stripe is 20 per cent of the flag’s height.
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Why red stripes were added in 2017
The change was part of a constitutional reform that also abolished the Senate. When the National Assembly passed the reform on 9 March 2017, by 121 votes to 19 according to AFP, it rejected two amendments from an opposition deputy, Malouma Mint Bilal, that would have kept the flag as it was. AFP described the two stripes as symbolising the blood shed by the “martyrs of the resistance”; Burkina24, quoting Jeune Afrique, wrote that they were meant to symbolise the blood shed by the nation’s martyrs against the French colonists. When the law describing the flag passed in October 2017, Mauritania’s news agency AMI reported that the government meant to raise the new flag for the first time at the next independence anniversary.
Telling it from the flag before 2017
The flag before 2017 is the same green field with the crescent and the gold star and no red: article 8 before the revision called it a flag with a crescent and a gold star on a green field. A Mauritanian flag with red stripes at the top and bottom is the present one.
The colours the government publishes
The graphic charter gives the three colours as red RGB 208, 28, 31 (#D01C1F), green RGB 0, 169, 92 (#00A95C) and gold RGB 255, 215, 0 (#FFD700), and in CMYK as 11/100/100/4, 86/5/95/0 and 1/13/100/0. It forbids changing the proportions or colour of the stripes at the edges, the colour of the field or of the crescent, or the flag’s height or length.
Read next
- Next in African flagsFlag of NigerNiger’s flag is three equal horizontal stripes, orange, white and green from the top, with an orange disc in the middle of the white. Niger’s constitution describes the flag and gives no meaning for its colours or the disc.
- 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 curves and waves, lines, squares and rectangles or stars.
Sources
- Constitution de la République Islamique de Mauritanie (texte consolidé), Constitution of 20 July 1991, consolidated text with the constitutional referendum laws of 15 August 2017, Article 8 (new), Premier Ministère, Secrétariat général du Gouvernement (Mauritanie), Preamble list of revisions; Article 8 (nouveau)
- Mauritania 1991 (rev. 2012) Constitution, Constitution of Mauritania (1991, rev. 2012), Article 8 before the 2017 revision, Constitute Project, Article 8
- Charte graphique de la République Islamique de Mauritanie (mai 2020), Identité visuelle / charte graphique, May 2020, pp. 7–10 (the flag; quotes Decree 467-2017 of 25 October 2017), Gouvernement de la République Islamique de Mauritanie (kennach.gov.mr), pp. 7–10, “Le drapeau”
- En Mauritanie, le Sénat va être supprimé et le drapeau changé, AFP, in La Libre Belgique, 9 March 2017, La Libre Belgique (AFP), AFP report
- La CENI annonce les résultats provisoires du vote référendaire, Agence mauritanienne d’information, 6 August 2017, Agence mauritanienne d’information (AMI), CENI communiqué
- L’Assemblée nationale adopte le projet de loi portant description du drapeau de la RIM, Agence mauritanienne d’information, 12 October 2017, Agence mauritanienne d’information (AMI), Report of the plenary session
- La Mauritanie officialise le changement de drapeau et la suppression du Sénat, Burkina24, 17 August 2017, Burkina24, News report
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 13, 2026. How we research
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