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Colors of Flags

Colours
Colour Areas

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At the International Congress of Vexillology (ICV) held in Victoria, Canada, last year (1999) , I presented a paper (prepared by Theo Stylianides and myself) entitled VEXISTATS - A statistical overview of the colours, symbols and designs of national flags in the 20th Century. This paper dealt with the design, colours and symbols used on flags in 1917, 1939, 1958, 1970 and 1999 and has a number of tables showing use of colours, symbols/emblems etc. and highlighted the trends which emerged over the century.

The basic contents of the paper included

Colours - number and type of colours; colour by continent, flag area covered by colour;
Symbols - type of symbols, symbol by continent;
Proportion - proportion, proportion by continent;
Design - equal/unequal stripes, cantons, triangles, borders etc.

This paper won the International Association of Flagmakers Award at the ICV for being one of the most interesting and unusual papers presented at the Congress.
Bruce Berry, 29 May 2000

Colours

The analysis of the number of colours used on flags between 1917 and 1999 reveals that the use of three colours is by far the most popular (Table 1), although this has declined between 1917 and 1999. The use of a single colour is negligible, the only examples being the plain red flag of Muscat and Oman in 1958 and 1970 and the green banner currently used by Libya. The use of bi-coloured flags increased between 1917 and 1939 but has since declined from the peak of 38% in 1939 to 25% currently. While having three colours is the most popular, this has also declined from a high of 61% in 1917 to 45% in 1999. There was a slight increase from between 1958 (51%) to 1970 (53%), possibly due to the large number of newly independent African countries whose flags use a three-colour combination. The use of more than three colours has increased with four- (23% in 1999), five- (6% in 1999) and even a six-colour flag currently being in use. The increase in the number of colours can be explained by the improvements in flag manufacturing technology together with the cultural preferences of the African, Asian and Caribbean countries which gained independence in the latter half of the century.

**Table 1 - Percentage of flags with a given number of colours (1917-1999)**
% of flags with	1917	1939	1958	1970	1999
1 colour	-	-	1	1	0.5
2 colours	32	38	32	28	25
3 colours	61	58	51	53	45
4 colours	5	3	15	16	23
5 colours	2	1	1	2	6
6 colours	-	-	-	-	0.5
Total	100	100	100	100	100

Tables 2 and 3 deal with the number of colours by continent in 1999. Table 2 gives the percentage of flags in each continent with a given number of colours and shows that over 70% of African flags contain three or four colours, while nearly 60% of the flags in America are three-coloured. Asia, by contrast, has almost an equal number of two-, three- and four-coloured flags. Table 3 shows where the numbers of colours on flags are located in the world in 1999. It is interesting to note that the only countries using a single-coloured flag (Libya) - the least number of colours currently used on a national flag - and a six-coloured flag (South Africa) - the most colours on a national flag - are both located in Africa.

**Table 2 - Percentage of flags in each continent with a given number of colours (1999)**
% of flags with	Africa	America	Asia	Europe	Oceania	World
1 colour	2	-	-	-	-	0.5
2 colours	13	20	33	36	21	25
3 colours	36	57	33	62	36	45
4 colours	36	11	35	2	36	23
5 colours	11	11	-	-	7	6
6 colours	2	-	-	-	-	0.5
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100

**Table 3 - Percentage of 1, 2, ..., 6 colour flags by continent (1999)**
% of flags with	Africa	America	Asia	Europe	Oceania	World
1 colour	100	-	-	-	-	100
2 colours	15	15	29	36	6	100
3 colours	22	23	16	33	6	100
4 colours	43	9	34	2	11	100
5 colours	55	36	-	-	9	100
6 colours	100	-	-	-	-	100
Total	28	22	18	24	7	100

The most popular colour used on flags is red (Table 4). Red has been the most popular colour throughout the century. Although it has declined from appearing on 81% of the flags surveyed in 1917 to 74% in 1999, it is still the most popular colour used on flags today. White also remains a popular colour and is found in 71% of all flags, slightly down from a high of 77% in 1917. Yellow has shown an overall increase from 26% in 1917 to 43% currently, while the use of blue has declined steadily from 67% at the beginning of the century to 50% today. The use of both black and green has shown constant increases, green showing the most dramatic increase from appearing on 16% of the flags in 1917 to 42% in 1999. The most obvious explanation for this is the use of green in the flags of Africa, and the Islamic countries of the Middle East and Asia. The use of black is also a feature in nearly a third of African flags.

The use of other colours remains small, with orange being found on 5% of flags. In 1917 no orange was used, while in 1939 it was found on the flags of Ireland and South Africa. Today the number of countries using orange on their flag has grown to nine and includes such diverse countries as India, Armenia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ireland, Turkmenistan and the Marshall Islands.

Other colours found on flags range from pink on the former flag of Persia in 1917, to brown (Lesotho shield and the tree branch in the flag of Dominica), silver/gray (Malta medal, Vatican keys and in part of the crested crane on the Ugandan flag) and purple (part of the Dominican parrot) in 1999. Maroon is now also found on the flags of Latvia, Qatar, Georgia and Turkmenistan. The point made by Weitman2 that "national flags make use of only seven outstanding colours: red, blue, green, yellow, orange, black and white ..." remains true in 1999.

**Table 4 - Percentage of flags containing specific colours (1917-1999)**
% of flags containing	1917	1939	1958	1970	1999
Yellow	26	24	31	35	43
Blue	67	59	52	45	50
Red	81	74	80	78	74
Black	7	10	11	20	22
White	77	76	74	68	71
Green	16	21	28	39	42
Orange	-	3	4	5	5
Other	2	2	3	3	5

The review of the colours by continent in 1999 (Table 5) shows that the most popular colours used on African flags are green (79%), red (75%) and white (55%). White (74%) is the most popular in the Americas, followed by blue and red. White (84%) and red (81%) are also the most popular colours on Asian flags, while red (74%), white (72%) and blue (53%) are the most popular on European flags. White (86%) and blue (79%) predominate in the flags of Oceania.

**Table 5 - Percentage of flags in each continent containing specific colours (1999)**
% of flags containing	Africa	America	Asia	Europe	Oceania	World
Yellow	58	51	28	30	50	43
Blue	40	69	35	53	79	50
Red	75	66	81	74	64	74
Black	32	26	23	11	14	22
White	55	74	84	72	86	71
Green	79	29	42	19	14	42
Orange	6	-	7	4	7	5
Other	4	6	5	8	-	5

As indicated earlier, red is the most popular flag being found on 74% of all the flags of the world today, followed by white on 71% of flags and blue on 50%. It is interesting that these colours are associated with the countries of the Old World (UK, France, Netherlands and Russia) as well as the United States. Yellow is found on 43% of the world's flags, mainly in Africa, South America and Oceania. Green is found on 42%, predominantly in Africa and to a lesser extent in Asia. 22% of flags today contain black, the colour being popular in the flags of Africa and the Caribbean region.
Bruce Berry, 31 May 2000

Colour Areas

Red is the dominant colour both in terms of the number of flags it appears on as well as the area it occupies. Although blue occupies the second largest area on flags, the second most popular colour on the total number of flags is actually white. It appears, therefore, that white appears on more flags but in smaller amounts while blue is on fewer flags but in larger amounts. Yellow appears on more flags in smaller amounts than green, while green occupies the third largest area appearing on fewer flags than yellow but in larger amounts. Similar observations occur for the other main colours used on flags but the undisputed most popular colour remains red.