Flag of Guinea

What the flag of Guinea looks like

The national flag of Guinea has three vertical bands of equal width: red at the hoist (the side nearest the pole), yellow in the middle and green at the fly. The proportions are 2:3. There is no emblem, star or writing on it.

Because it is so plain, it is often confused with other red, yellow and green flags, especially the one from Mali, which has the same colors in the opposite order, with green at the hoist. The name also leads to confusion with other countries called Guinea. This page is about the Republic of Guinea, also known as Guinea-Conakry after its capital, Conakry. See the separate pages for Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Papua New Guinea.

Guinea flag meaning and symbolism

The three colors are those of the Pan-African movement, taken from the flag of Ethiopia and spread across Africa after Ghana's independence in 1957. In Guinea they are usually explained as:

• Red for the sacrifice of those who fought for freedom and for the labor of the people.
• Yellow for the sun and the wealth of the country, including its gold.
• Green for the country's vegetation and its fertile land.

The colors are also read alongside the national motto, Travail, Justice, Solidarité (Work, Justice, Solidarity), with one color matching each word. These links are traditional and not part of the legal definition of the flag.

History of the Guinea flag

Guinea was a French colony, part of French West Africa, and used the French flag. In a referendum in September 1958 Guinea was the only French colony in Africa to reject the new French Community offered by General de Gaulle. It declared independence on 2 October 1958 under Ahmed Sékou Touré.

The flag was adopted shortly afterward, on 10 November 1958. It followed the example of Ghana, the first sub-Saharan colony to gain independence, in using the Pan-African colors. The design has not been changed since, despite several changes of government.

The flag later became a point of comparison for other flags. When Rwanda adopted a red, yellow and green tricolor in 1961, it added a black letter R in the center to tell it apart from Guinea's.

Flags that look like the Guinea flag

The Guinea flag looks like the flags of Mali, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. Mali's flag is the same three colors reversed, with green at the hoist. Senegal also has green, yellow and red bands, with a green star in the center. Guinea-Bissau has a red vertical band with a black star, and yellow and green horizontal bands. Guinea's flag is the only one of these that is a plain red-yellow-green tricolor in this order.