Flag of Argentina
Argentina’s flag has light blue, white and light blue horizontal stripes with a gold sun with a face in the middle, the Sun of May (Sol de Mayo), copied from the first Argentine coins of 1813. The 1944 flag decree explains its blue only as “light blue like the sky” and gives the colours no other meaning.
Easily confused with
- Flag of El SalvadorEl Salvador’s flag has blue, white and blue horizontal stripes, the colours of the old Central American federation, with either the coat of arms or the motto “Dios, Unión, Libertad” on the white. The 1972 law on the national symbols describes the flag and gives the colours no meaning; El Diario de Hoy reports that by the official description the blue stands for the two oceans that wash Central America and the white for peace.
- Flag of HondurasHonduras’s flag has blue, white and blue horizontal stripes with five blue stars in the centre. The flag decree describes the stars without explaining them; the Honduran press gives the usual reading, that they stand for the five countries of the old Central American federation: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
- Flag of UruguayUruguay’s flag has nine horizontal stripes, five white and four blue, with a white square in the top corner by the pole holding the Sun of May, a sun with a face and 16 rays. The Intendencia de Canelones says the stripes stand for the nine departments into which Uruguay was divided when the first flag was made in 1828.
How to read it
Decree 10.302 of 24 April 1944 defines the official flag as the flag with the sun approved by the Congress of Tucumán, meeting in Buenos Aires, on 25 February 1818: three horizontal stripes of equal size, two light blue and one white, with the sun of the gold eight-escudo and silver eight-real coins of 1813 in the centre of the white stripe, its 32 flaming and straight rays placed alternately, in golden yellow. Manuel Belgrano created the blue and white flag on 27 February 1812 at what is now the city of Rosario, and the Congress of Tucumán confirmed its colours on 20 July 1816. Law 23.208 of 1985 gave private citizens the right to fly the official flag, and Decree 1650 of 2010 fixed its measurements, cloth, colours and fittings by Argentine IRAM standards. Flag Day is 20 June, under Law 12.361 of 1938.
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The sun, ray by ray
The sun has 32 rays, 16 straight and 16 wavy (“flamígeros”, flame-shaped), set alternately, as on the coins of 1813. The government’s flag page calls it the Inca sun (Inti). On ceremonial flags the sun must be embroidered; on flags for hoisting it may be printed or painted by hand, La Nación reports.
Uruguay’s flag carries a Sun of May too, a symbol La Nación ties to the May Revolution of 1810.
The flag with and without the sun
From 1818 Argentina had two flags. The “bandera mayor”, with the sun, was for the state and the army, and a “bandera menor”, without it, was for civilian use, La Nación explains. The 1944 decree kept the split: private citizens were to fly the national colours only as a flag without the sun. Law 23.208 of 1985 repealed that article and gave private citizens the right to the official flag, and La Nación describes it as the change that put the sun on every flag.
The proportions at sea
Argentina’s Naval Prefecture, applying the IRAM standards to ships’ flags in 2016, makes the flag 1.6 times as long as it is high, each stripe a third of the height. The sun’s face is a ninth of the flag’s height across, and the whole sun, rays included, two and a half times that.
Where this symbol came from
oldsymbols.comInti (the Inca sun)Argentina’s government calls the flag’s Sun of May the Inca sun.Read next
- Next in South American flagsFlag of BrazilBrazil’s flag is a yellow diamond on green holding a blue globe of 27 white stars, the sky over Rio de Janeiro on the morning of 15 November 1889, crossed by a white band with the motto ORDEM E PROGRESSO (“Order and Progress”). Each star stands for a state or the Federal District; the 1889 flag decree said the green and yellow, kept from the empire, recall the victories of the army and navy.
- The same shape 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.
More south American flags
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles, lines or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Bandera Nacional (Argentina.gob.ar), Presidencia de la Nación, “Bandera Nacional”, Símbolos Patrios, argentina.gob.ar, Presidencia de la Nación (Argentina), Bandera Nacional; Origen; Conmemoración; Usos
- Decreto 10.302/1944, Símbolos Nacionales (Argentina), Decreto 10.302 del 24 de abril de 1944, texto original, Información Legislativa, Ministerio de Justicia (Argentina), Información Legislativa, Considerandos; Art. 2; Art. 3
- Ley 23.208, Bandera Oficial de la Nación (Argentina), Ley 23.208, texto original, Información Legislativa, Ministerio de Justicia (Argentina), Información Legislativa, Arts. 1–2; date of enactment
- Decreto 1650/2010, Bandera Argentina (Argentina), Decreto 1650/2010, texto original, Información Legislativa, Ministerio de Justicia (Argentina), Información Legislativa, Art. 1
- Disposición 13/2016, Prefectura Naval Argentina, Prefectura Naval Argentina, Disposición 13/2016 (Ordenanza N° 3-16), Boletín Oficial 9 June 2016, Prefectura Naval Argentina, Art. 4
- Qué dice “la ciencia de las banderas” sobre cómo es correcto usar el Sol de Mayo (La Nación), La Nación (Buenos Aires), 20 June 2025, La Nación, Article text
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 13, 2026. How we research
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