Flag of Brazil

How to read it

The flag is the one adopted by Decree No. 4 of 19 November 1889, four days after the republic was proclaimed, as amended in 1968 and 1992. Law No. 5,700 of 1971 fixes its construction. The sky on the globe is Rio de Janeiro’s at 8.30 in the morning on 15 November 1889, drawn as seen by an observer outside the celestial sphere, and the stars change when a state is created or abolished. The law divides the flag’s height into 14 modules and makes it 20 modules long; the corners of the yellow diamond are 1.7 modules from the edge, the blue globe has a radius of 3.5 modules, the white band is half a module wide and the motto is in green. The stars come in five sizes, from 0.3 of a module across for the brightest to 0.1 for the faintest. Green and yellow are the national colours.

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Why the sky is mirrored

The law puts the observer outside the celestial sphere, so the stars appear as on a celestial globe, the mirror image of what someone in Rio saw, Canaltech explains. The law also forbids making one face of the flag the reverse of the other: both faces are the same, with the white band sloping from left to right as you look at it.

The star above the band

One star sits alone above the white band. It is Spica, the brightest star in Virgo, and it stands for the state of Pará. In 1925 the astronomer Henrique Morize criticised the globe, O Povo reports: the Southern Cross is out of place and too large, and Spica should be just below the band, out of sight. The Federal District’s star is the southern pole star, Polaris Australis.

Where the green and yellow came from

The green field and yellow diamond come from the flag of the Empire of Brazil, designed by the French painter Jean-Baptiste Debret and decreed by Pedro I on 19 September 1822, O Povo says. The 1889 decree kept the old colours, green and yellow, on purpose: it says they recall the struggles and glorious victories of the army and navy in defence of the country, and stand for its permanence and integrity among nations. O Povo gives the imperial origin as green for Pedro’s House of Braganza and yellow for the House of Lorraine of his wife, the Empress Leopoldina. The reading taught in schools now, green for the forests, yellow for gold and blue for the sky, is recent, O Povo says.

Order and Progress

The motto is adapted from the positivist motto of Auguste Comte, “Love as the principle and order as the basis; progress as the goal”. Raimundo Teixeira Mendes, who conceived the flag, was a devoted follower of Comte; O Povo credits the design to him with Miguel Lemos, Manuel Pereira Reis and Décio Vilares. The 1889 flag had 21 stars, for the 20 states and the capital, then the Neutral Municipality; it has had 27 since 1992.