Flag of Gabon

What the flag of Gabon looks like

The flag of Gabon has three horizontal bands of equal height. Green is at the top, yellow is in the middle and blue is at the bottom. The flag has no emblem or other detail, and its proportions are 3:4 (height to length, a width-to-height ratio of 4:3), set by Gabonese law, so it is closer to a square than most national flags.

Many flags use green, yellow and blue, but this order and the plain layout are distinctive. The flag of Sierra Leone has green, white and blue bands, and is the closest in appearance, although white replaces yellow.

Gabon flag meaning and symbolism

The meanings are tied to the geography and resources of the country:

• Green stands for the natural resources of Gabon, especially its extensive forests.
• Yellow stands for the equator, which crosses the country, and for the sun.
• Blue stands for the sea, the South Atlantic Ocean along Gabon's long coast.

Gabon's flag does not use the green, yellow and red Pan-African colors that its neighbors use, and unlike other former French colonies in Africa it is a horizontal tricolor rather than a vertical one.

History of the Gabon flag

Gabon was part of French Equatorial Africa and became an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958. A first national flag was adopted in 1959, making Gabon the only French autonomous republic whose flag carried this link to France. It used the same three colors but the yellow stripe was narrower, and the French tricolor sat in the canton as a sign of the link to France.

The present flag was adopted on 9 August 1960, just over a week before full independence on 17 August 1960. The French canton was removed and the yellow stripe was widened to match the other two. The design has not changed since. In 2023 the country went through a change of government, but the flag stayed the same.