Central African Republic

République Centrafricain

Last modified: 2005-05-28 by Željko heimer
Keywords: central african republic | star | french equatorial africa | pan-african |
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2:3
by Željko Heimer

3:5
by Željko Heimer
Flag adopted 1 December 1958, coat of arms adopted 17 May 1963.

• National Flag
• Flag in the Constitution
• Coat of arms
• Presidential flag
• Use of flag by political parties
• Aircraft Marking
• Chadian flag over CAR?

• Central African Republic 1976 Flag Project with extracts from relevant legislation considering:
• Central African Empire, 1976 - 1979

• BaTwa, the territory inhabited by the Twa people in CAR, Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

The four-striped blue, white, green and yellow flag with fifth red stirpe set vertically and yellow five-pointed star in "canton". In Album 2000 is given ratio 2:3 and a note claiming that there exists variant in ration 3:5. For the comparison Smith 1975 and Smith 1980 gives ratio as 3:5~, Shipmate Chart has it 3:5, Znamierowski 1999 gives "Proportions unspecified" which is probably closest to the thruth.
According to Smith 1982 colours were chosen to represent France and Panafrican colours. What is common - red as blood - is superimposed to symbolize that Europeans and Africans have to respect each other. Yellow star of independence symbolizes a bright future. Officialy hoisted on 1 December 1958.
Željko Heimer 11 May 2001

The Album 2000 gives exact construction details (2+2+2+2):(5+2+5), but I am somehow doubtful - I believe that the numbers 5 are here gained as "rest" from the firm overall ratio (2:3, which is not quite certain as discussed above) and requirement that the vertcial stripe be of euqal width as each of the horizontal stripes (the requirement seems to be implicit, but followed quite strictly).
L'Album 1995 issue also give two possibilities for the ratio, but it also specifies the position of the star. According to this the star should have center in point 0.14b from hoist where b is the flag length. This specification is not mentioned latter, I guess it is not quite relevant (if not entirely wrong).
While doing these images, I made image with ratio 4:5. While I have no sources or proves of such flag existance, but I think that this minght have been the original idea - probably never actually used - for the sake of the "conformity" with other "normal" flags (such as 2:3 or 3:5). The idea here is that all the five stripes are of equal size (area) in the flag. Well, just a specu