🇪🇨 The colours of Ecuador

Ecuador’s flag features yellow, blue, and red bands, with yellow twice as wide as the others. Yellow stands for fertile land and crops, blue for the sea and sky, and red for the blood of those who fought for freedom. These colours, shared with Colombia and Venezuela, reflect both Ecuador’s natural wealth and its history of independence.

Where no official value is given, the swatch shows the colour family, not the exact shade.

• Yellow covers half the flag, blue and red each a quarter.
• The flag’s colours come from the Pan-Colombian tricolour.
• Red stands for the blood of independence heroes.
• The flag’s design was finalised in 1900.
• The merchant marine uses the flag without the coat of arms.

The colours of the flag of Ecuador

The Ecuadorian flag is made up of three horizontal stripes: yellow (top, half the flag’s width), blue (middle, a quarter), and red (bottom, a quarter). The yellow stripe symbolises the country’s rich soil and agricultural abundance. Blue stands for the Pacific Ocean and Ecuador’s clear skies, while red remembers those who lost their lives for independence. These meanings are officially recognised. The flag also features the national coat of arms in the centre for government and military use, highlighting Ecuador’s geography and history.

How the colours were chosen of Ecuador

Ecuador’s flag colours trace back to the early 19th century, first appearing on Francisco de Miranda’s tricolour in 1806. After independence from Spain, Ecuador used several different flags, including red, blue and white designs with stars for provinces. The yellow, blue, and red tricolour was reinstated in 1860, echoing the flag of Gran Colombia, a former union of Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. In 1900, the flag was finalised with the addition of the coat of arms for official use, while the plain tricolour is used by the merchant marine.

Official shades and rules of Ecuador

Regulations set the flag’s proportions at 2:3, with yellow twice the width of blue and red. The coat of arms, when present, is centred and scaled to half the flag’s width. There are specific sizes for official and table flags, and sellers must label flags with their company name and year. Only the merchant marine uses the plain tricolour by law.