Flag of Venezuela

What the flag of Venezuela looks like

The Venezuelan flag has three horizontal bands of equal height: yellow on top, blue in the middle and red at the bottom. Its width-to-height ratio is 2:3. In the center of the blue band, eight white five-pointed stars are set in a shallow arc that curves upward in the middle.

There are two official versions. The civil flag, used by the public, is the plain tricolor with the stars. The state flag, flown by government bodies and the armed forces, adds the national coat of arms in the upper left corner, on the yellow band next to the hoist. The coat of arms includes a white horse, shown galloping to the left.

The colors and layout look a lot like the flags of Colombia and Ecuador. The quickest way to tell Venezuela's flag apart is the stars: neither of the other two has them, and Venezuela's stripes are all the same height. You can also see a small version of it as the Venezuela flag emoji.

Venezuela flag meaning and symbolism

The meanings of the colors are traditional rather than set by law, and several versions are told. The symbolism traditionally ascribed to the colors is that yellow stands for the wealth of the land, red for courage, and blue for independence from Spain.

Another explanation is linked to Francisco de Miranda, the precursor of Venezuelan independence, who designed the tricolor for his 1806 expedition. In this reading, yellow is "golden" America, red is bloody Spain, and blue is the deep sea that separates them.

The eight stars stand for the provinces that backed independence. The original seven stand for the provinces of Caracas, Cumaná, Barcelona, Barinas, Margarita, Mérida and Trujillo, which signed the declaration of independence. The eighth star stands for Guayana, a province that Simón Bolívar added by a decree of 1817 and that the 2006 change brought back to the national flag.

History of the Venezuela flag

The flag is essentially the yellow, blue and red tricolor that Francisco de Miranda designed for his unsuccessful 1806 expedition to liberate Venezuela. It was first flown on 12 March 1806 at Jacmel, Haiti, and first flown over Venezuelan soil at La Vela de Coro on 3 August. Venezuela celebrates Flag Day (Día de la Bandera) on 3 August; until 2006 it was celebrated on 12 March. The National Congress adopted the design in 1811.

Between 1819 and 1830, Venezuela was part of Gran Colombia, a union that also included Colombia, Ecuador and Panama. That union used the same yellow, blue and red colors, which is why the flags of those countries are close relatives today. When Venezuela left Gran Colombia and became a separate republic in 1830, it kept the tricolor. During the first half of the 19th century seven stars were added to the blue band, and the number and placement of the stars changed several times afterward. The Law of the National Flag, Coat of Arms and Anthem of 1954 added the coat of arms to the state flag, but not to the civil flag.

The latest change came in 2006, when President Hugo Chávez, who announced the plan in November 2005, added the eighth star in line with Bolívar's 1817 decree about the Guayana province. At the same time the coat of arms was changed: the horse now gallops to the left instead of cantering to the right, and a bow and arrow and a machete were added. Pre-2006 flags with seven stars and a right-facing horse are still seen, and are easy to confuse with the current one at a glance.

Venezuela flag vs Colombia flag

The three yellow, blue and red flags of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador all descend from the flag of Gran Colombia. The differences are small but consistent:

• Venezuela: three equal stripes, an arc of eight white stars on the blue band, ratio 2:3.
• Colombia: the yellow stripe is twice as tall as the blue and red stripes, with no stars or emblem.
• Ecuador: like Colombia, with a wide yellow stripe, but with the national coat of arms in the center.

Venezuela's tricolor is also the oldest of the group in this form: Miranda designed it in 1806, and it inspired the flags of Colombia and Ecuador.