Flag of Bolivia

How to read it

Article 6 of the 2009 constitution lists the symbols of the State: the red, yellow and green tricolour flag, the anthem, the coat of arms, the wiphala, the cockade, and the kantuta and patujú flowers. Supreme Decree 241 of 5 August 2009 fixes their form and use and replaced the decree of 2004 on the same subject. It describes three horizontal stripes of equal size, red, yellow and green from the top, in a proportion of 7.5 units high to 11 long, gives the colours by Pantone code, and sets the official sizes at 300 by 200 cm (about 9 ft 10 in by 6 ft 7 in) for flying and 30 by 20 cm (about 12 by 8 in) for cars and desks. The present order of the stripes dates from 1851, under President Manuel Isidoro Belzu, according to the Sucre newspaper Correo del Sur, which adds that Flag Day has been kept on 17 August since 1924, the anniversary of Bolivia’s first flag of 1825.

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The flag with the arms and the plain tricolour

Decree 241 puts the coat of arms on the flag only for official use. The tricolour raised every working day at the Government Palace, the Legislative Palace, the Palace of Justice, ministries, prefectures and embassies carries the arms in the centre of the yellow stripe on both sides. The armed forces’ flag adds a branch of laurel and a branch of olive either side of the arms. Citizens raise the plain tricolour on their homes on patriotic holidays.

The arms, as the decree describes them, show the Cerro Rico of Potosí with the sun rising behind it, a llama, a sheaf of wheat and a palm tree, inside a blue oval with the word BOLIVIA above and ten gold stars below, one for each department. Three flags stand on each side of the oval, with crossed cannons and rifles, an axe and a cap of liberty, and an Andean condor on top.

The wiphala beside the tricolour

Since the 2009 constitution the wiphala has been one of Bolivia’s symbols of the State alongside the tricolour. Decree 241 describes it as a square flag of 49 squares, seven columns by seven rows, in seven colours, with a white diagonal running down from left to right, and calls it a sacred symbol of the communal system based on equity, equality, harmony, solidarity and reciprocity. Central government buildings raise it on the left side of their fronts, and citizens may raise it on their homes on public holidays.

The rainbow story

Correo del Sur tells how the colours came to be in their present order. In 1851 Belzu was riding from La Paz to Oruro for a congress he had called, and near the community of Pasto Grande he saw a rainbow in which red, yellow and green stood out; he then set the red at the top, the yellow in the centre and the green at the bottom. The first flag, made by law on 17 August 1825, was green and scarlet with five gold stars in wreaths of olive and laurel, and a law of 25 July 1826 under Antonio José de Sucre replaced the stars with a yellow stripe at the top and the arms in the centre.

Bolivia’s, Ghana’s and Ethiopia’s flags

Ghana’s flag has the same three colours in the same order, red, gold and green in horizontal stripes, with a black five-pointed star in the centre of the gold. Ethiopia’s flag reverses the order, green at the top and red at the bottom, with a national emblem in the centre.