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Transvaal (South Africa)

Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek

by Antonio Martins, 2 Mar 1999

Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (1857)
Orange or Red?
Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek re-established (1880)
The Vierkleur
This flag in the old SA one

See also:

Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR)

Republic in the Transvaal, formed between 1857 and 1864. Horizontally red-white-blue with a vertical green stripe at the hoist (known as the "Vierkleur" or four colour) 1857-1902, except for 1874-75 when the Voortrekker flag, but with the saltire fimbriated white, was restored [car61, p.83]
Roy Stilling, 8 Oct 1996

This flag was registered with the South African Bureau of Heraldry as the flag of the South African Republic for the Office of the Prime Minister together with the flag of the Republic of Orange Free State on 30 April 1983 (application 8 January 1982, amendment 5 March 1982). Certificates were issued for both in Afrikaans on 14 October 1983.
The text in English for the flag of the South African Republic reads as follows:
A rectangular flag proportions three by two, consisting of three horizontal stripes of equal width, from top to bottom red, white and blue and at the hoist a vertical green stripe one and one quarter the width of each of the other three stripes.
(Note: this means the green stripe in the GIF should be {216/3}*1.25=90 pixels wide!)
Source: "Some South African flags, 1940-1990" compiled by F.G. Brownell, the State Herald, june 1991.
Mark Sensen, 8 Mar 1999

Orange or Red?

Why did the Transvaal adopt the "new" Dutch colours (red-white-blue) whereas South Africa uses the "old" Dutch colours (orange-white-blue) for its flag?
Josh Fruhlinger, 15 Oct 1996

It might be because the independent Boer republics were trying to capitalise on their Dutch connections in the hope of getting support from there and elsewhere in Europe against the British. However, by the 1920s it was clear that for the time being they had to be resigned to the British connection. Instead more emphasis was put on the idea of the Afrikaners (a term and language which was then becoming preferred over the Dutch used in the 19th century) as a people belonging to and shaped by Africa, as much as by Europe, and the "Van Riebeek" orange-white-blue flag was said to be the first flag raised in South Africa itself.
Roy Stilling, 15 Oct 1996

Even the earliest republics (Graaff-Reinet and Swellendam, which were set up in 1795) adopted the new Dutch flag. The reason was that they sa