Flag of Cape Verde

What the flag of Cape Verde looks like

The national flag of Cape Verde has a blue field with a horizontal band of three stripes running below the middle: white, red and white. The three stripes are narrow compared with the large blue areas above and below them. A ring of ten five-pointed yellow stars is placed on the hoist side, centered on the red stripe, so the circle is cut across by the band. The width-to-height ratio is 10:17.

The flag is unusual among African flags. Instead of the pan-African red, yellow and green, it relies on blue, and the circle of stars is closer in style to the flag of the European Union than to those of its mainland neighbors. Nothing on the flag refers to the old colonial power, Portugal.

Cape Verde flag meaning and symbolism

The blue field represents the Atlantic Ocean that surrounds the islands and the sky above them. The white, red and white stripes are most often explained as the road that the nation is building, with white standing for peace and red for the effort and hard work of the people. Some descriptions also link the stripes to the line of the horizon between sea and sky.

The ten yellow stars match the ten main islands of the archipelago, nine of them inhabited, and the circle expresses their unity. Yellow is also used for hope and for the sun. As is often the case, these readings are traditional, not written into law.

• Blue: ocean and sky
• White: peace
• Red: effort and the struggle to build the nation
• Ring of ten stars: the islands and their unity

History of the Cape Verde flag

The islands were uninhabited when Portuguese navigators reached them in the 15th century and remained a Portuguese colony until independence on 5 July 1975. During the colonial period they used Portuguese flags and colonial emblems.

After independence the country was led by the PAIGC, the party that had fought for the freedom of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. The first national flag used the party's red, yellow and green colors, with a black star on a red band at the hoist and two horizontal bands of yellow and green. It was almost identical to the flag of Guinea-Bissau, reflecting the plan of a union between the two states, which was dropped after a coup in Guinea-Bissau in 1980.

Cape Verde moved to a multiparty system in 1990-91, and in 1992 a new flag was adopted that no longer matched any party. The new design replaced the Pan-African colors with blue, white and red and the ring of ten stars. The ten-star flag is still in use and is now the symbol of a state defined by its islands.

Two flags, one country

People who ask why Cape Verde has two flags are usually looking at the 1975-1992 flag and the current one. Only the ten-star design is official today. Other flags in the area, such as those of Guinea-Bissau, still use the Pan-African colors. You can see all national flags on the flags of the world page, and the Cape Verde flag emoji shows the same ring of stars in a small size.