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Flag of Ethiopia

Three equal horizontal bands of green, yellow and red. In the centre is a blue disc holding a yellow five-pointed star drawn as a pentagram, with yellow rays between its points.

Flag of Ethiopia

What the flag means

A former government website explained green as the fertility of the land, yellow as religious freedom and red as the lives given to defend the country. The blue of the emblem stands for peace and democracy, and the star and its rays for the equality of the country's peoples.

History

Menelik II brought the three colours together in one flag in 1897, a year after the Battle of Adwa. The imperial flag carried the Lion of Judah, and later governments used other emblems. The present emblem was added in 1996 under the Flag and Emblem Proclamation of the new federal republic. Proclamation No. 654/2009 replaced that law, set a darker blue for the disc and made it an offence to fly the flag without the emblem.

Ethiopia's green, yellow and red were taken up by many newly independent African states in homage to its resistance to foreign occupation, and are known as the pan-African colours.

Earlier flags of Ethiopia

  1. 1941–1974Green, yellow and red tricolour with the Lion of Judah
  2. 1975–1987Tricolour used under the Derg military government, plain or with its emblem
  3. 1987–1991Tricolour with the emblem of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
  4. 1991–1996Plain tricolour of the Transitional Government

Flags that look like this one

Flag of BoliviaBoliviaFlag of GhanaGhanaFlag of LithuaniaLithuaniaFlag of EthiopiaEthiopia

Bolivia is red, yellow, green. Ghana uses the same order with a black star. Lithuania is yellow, green, red. Ethiopia is green, yellow, red with a blue disc and star.

Flags of Ethiopia's neighbours

Sources

Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Read how we research flags in our editorial policy, or report a mistake.

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