africa

Central African Republic 2

Central African Republic

The design consists of four horizontal stripes and one vertical stripe, and a single yellow five-pointed star in the upper left. The colours chosen are intended to be symbolic of France (blue and white) and Africa (green and yellow) with the red vertical stripe connecting them both in unity, and the respect that Europeans and Africans should have for each other. The yellow star is intended to be indicative of independence. The Constitution of the Central African Republic describes the flag as “four equal sized horizontal bands of the colours blue, white, green and yellow, perpendicularly barred in their centre by a red band of equal size and marked in the upper left corner by a yellow five-pointed star.”

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Cameroon 3

Cameroon

The national flag of Cameroon was adopted in its present form on 20 May 1975 after Cameroon became a unitary state. It is a vertical tricolour of green, red and yellow, with a five-pointed star in its center. There is a wide variation in the size of the central star, although it is always contained within the inside stripe.

The colour scheme uses the traditional Pan-African colours (Cameroon was the second state to adopt them). The centre stripe is thought to stand for unity: red is the colour of unity, and the star is referred to as “the star of unity”. The yellow stands for the sun, and also the savannas in the northern part of the country, while the green is for the forests in the southern part of Cameroon.

The previous flag of Cameroon, used from 1961 to 1975, had a similar colour scheme, but with two gold (darker than the third stripe by comparison) stars in the upper half of the green. It was adopted after British Southern Cameroons joined the state of Cameroon.

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Burundi 4

Burundi

The original national flag of Burundi was adopted after the country’s independence from Belgium on 1 July 1962. It went through several revisions and now consists of a white saltire which divides the field into alternating red and green areas. The center of the saltire merges into a white disk, on which there are three red solid six-pointed stars outlined in green. The current ratio is 3:5, which was changed from 2:3 until 27 September 1982.

The flag is divided into four parts by a white saltire. The upper and lower parts are red in color, while the left and right ones are green in color. White color of the saltire represents peace, green represents the nation’s hopes placed on future development and red symbolizes the suffering of the nation during its freedom struggle. The three stars in triangular configuration stand for the three major ethnic groups of Burundi: the Hutu, the Twa and the Tutsi. The three stars also stand for the three elements of the national motto: Unité, Travail, Progrès (“Unity, Work and Progress”), which can be seen on the coat of arms of Burundi. They also represent the loyalty that the citizens of the nations have pledged to their God, king and country.

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Burkina Faso 5

Burkina Faso

The national flag of Burkina Faso is formed by two equal horizontal bands of red (top) and green, with a yellow five-pointed star resting in the center. The flag was adopted on 4 August 1984. The flag is coloured in the popular Pan-African colours of the Ethiopian flag, reflecting both a break with the country’s colonial past and its unity with other African ex-colonies. The red is also said to symbolize the revolution and the green the abundance of agricultural and natural riches. The yellow star placed over the red and green stripes is the guiding light of the revolution. The flag was adopted following the coup of 1983 which brought Thomas Sankara to power.

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Botswana 6

Botswana

The national flag of Botswana consists of a light blue field cut horizontally in the centre by a black stripe with a thin white frame. Adopted in 1966 to replace the Union Jack, it has been the flag of the Republic of Botswana since the country gained independence that year. It is one of the few African flags that utilises neither the colours of the Pan-Africanist movement nor the colours of the country’s leading political party.

Before it gained independence, Botswana did not have its own distinctive colonial flag, with the flag of the United Kingdom serving as the de facto flag of the protectorate. When Botswana’s national flag was created in 1966, it was symbolically designed to contrast with the flag of South Africa, since the latter country was ruled under an apartheid regime. Hence, the black stripe with the white frame came to epitomise the peace and harmony between the people of African and European descent who reside in Botswana. The new flag was first hoisted at midnight on 30 September 1966, the day Botswana became an independent country.

The colours of the flag carry cultural, political, and regional meanings. The light blue represents water—specifically, in its form of rain, as it is a precious resource in Botswana, which relies on agriculture and suffers from frequent droughts due to the dry and arid climate of the Kalahari Desert. The blue also alludes to the motto featured on the coat of arms of Botswana—Pula, which means “Let there be rain” in Setswana – as well as life, which is sustained by water.

The black band with the white frame has two meanings. Firstly, they symbolise the harmony and cooperation between the people of different races who live in Botswana, as well as the racial diversity of the country. Furthermore, they represent the stripes of the zebra, the national animal of Botswana.

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Benin 7

Benin

The national flag of Benin is a flag consisting of two horizontal yellow and red bands on the fly side and a green vertical band at the hoist. Adopted in 1959 to replace the French Tricolour, it was the flag of the Republic of Dahomey until 1975, when the People’s Republic of Benin was established. The new regime renamed the country and changed the flag to a green field with a red star in the canton. This version was utilized until the regime collapsed in 1990, coinciding with the Revolutions of 1989. The new government promptly restored the original pre-1975 flag.

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Angola Flag on Our Flagpole

Angola

Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy is among the fastest-growing in the world, especially since the end of the civil war; however, the standard of living remains low for most of the population, and life expectancy in Angola is among the lowest in the world, while infant mortality is among the highest. Angola’s economic growth is highly uneven, with most of the nation’s wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population.

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Algeria Flag on Our Flagpole

Algeria

Algeria, (Arabic: الجزائر‎) officially the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria (Arabic: الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية‎), is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. The capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north of the country on the Mediterranean coast. With an area of 919,595 square miles, Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, and the largest in Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia, to the east by Libya, to the west by Morocco, to the southwest by the Western Saharan territory, Mauritania, and Mali, to the southeast by Niger, and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The country is a semi-presidential republic consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes. It has the highest Human development index of all non-island African countries.

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