Flag of Namibia
Namibia’s flag is crossed from the bottom corner by the pole to the top corner of the fly by a red band edged in white, with blue above holding a gold sun of twelve rays, and green below. Namibia’s government says the sun is life and energy, its gold the warmth and the colour of the plains of the Namib Desert, blue the sky, the Atlantic Ocean, the marine resources and rain and water, red the people and their heroism, white peace and unity, and green the vegetation and agricultural resources.
Easily confused with
- Flag of TanzaniaTanzania’s flag is divided diagonally by a black band edged in gold, from the bottom corner by the pole to the top corner at the fly, with green above and blue below. Tanzania’s Daily News explains the green as vegetation and fertile land, the black as the people, the gold as the country’s natural wealth and the blue as its lakes, rivers and ocean.
- Flag of Trinidad and TobagoTrinidad and Tobago’s flag is red, crossed from the top corner by the pole to the bottom corner at the fly by a black band edged in white. The Office of the President says the red stands for the vitality of the land and its people, the warmth and energy of the sun and the people’s courage and friendliness, the white for the sea that binds the islands and the equality of all, and the black for the dedication of a people joined by one strong bond.
How to read it
Article 2 of the Constitution of 1990 gives Namibia a national flag described in Schedule 6: three to two in proportion, divided diagonally blue, white and green, the white band a third as wide as the flag and carrying a red band a quarter as wide. In the upper corner by the pole is a gold sun with twelve straight rays, its diameter a third of the flag’s width. The Constituent Assembly adopted the flag on 2 February 1990, and it was first raised at independence on 21 March 1990.
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The sun
Schedule 6 draws the sun exactly: a disc whose diameter is a third of the flag’s width, set equidistant from the top edge and from the diagonal band, with twelve straight rays, each two fifths of the sun’s radius, coming out from the edge of a blue ring a tenth of the radius wide. Don Stevenson, one of the three designers, told New Era that all his entries had a sun: Japan’s flag has one, he said, and Africa has a sun too.
Who designed it
The National Symbols Sub-Committee of the Constituent Assembly called for designs early in 1990 and received 870, New Era reported in 2018. Six were chosen, then three, and the three were combined: those of Theo Jankowski of Rehoboth, Don Stevenson of Windhoek and Ortrud Clay of Lüderitz. Jankowski said the first three colours of his design were from the Swapo party flag; Stevenson based his designs on the Swapo colours. The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, after a newspaper had named a different designer, checked its archives and confirmed that the three designs were combined to make the flag.
Read next
- Next in African flagsFlag of South AfricaSouth Africa’s flag has a green band shaped like a Y lying on its side, edged in white and gold, around a black triangle at the pole, with red above and blue below. The South African government says no universal meaning should be given to any of its colours; it reads the converging Y as the coming together of South Africa’s peoples, taking the road ahead in unity.
- The same shape in Asian flagsFlag of IndiaThree equal bands of saffron, white and green, with a navy blue wheel of 24 spokes, the Ashoka Chakra, in the centre. The Flag Code of India quotes Dr S. Radhakrishnan’s explanation to the Constituent Assembly in 1947: saffron for renunciation, white for light and the path of truth, green for the relation to the soil, and the wheel for the law of dharma and for motion.
More african flags
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles, lines or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Namibia 1990 (rev. 2014) Constitution, Constitution of the Republic of Namibia, 1990 (rev. 2014), article 2 and Schedule 6, Constitute Project, Article 2; Schedule 6
- National Symbols (Permanent Mission of Namibia to the UN), Permanent Mission of the Republic of Namibia to the United Nations, “Symbols”, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Namibia to the United Nations, The National Flag
- The Namibian flag: Its origins and spirit that inspire the nation, Herman Kangootui and Elizabeth Amagola, New Era, 14 June 2018, New Era (Windhoek), Whole article
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 13, 2026. How we research
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