🇬🇳 The colours of Guinea

Guinea’s flag features red, yellow, and green, chosen for their links to the Pan-African movement and the country’s own story. Red stands for sacrifice and labour, yellow for gold and the sun, and green for the land and its people. These colours echo the national motto: Work, Justice, Solidarity.

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

• The flag’s colours mirror the Pan-African movement.
• Red, yellow, and green were first used by Guinea’s main independence party in 1954.
• The flag was adopted on 10 November 1958.
• Guinea’s flag is the reverse of Mali’s flag.
• Each colour matches a word in the national motto: Work, Justice, Solidarity.

The colours of the flag of Guinea

Guinea’s flag is a vertical tricolour of red, yellow, and green, adopted in 1958. Each colour has a meaning tied to the country’s values and history. Red stands for the blood of those who fought against colonialism, the hard work of the people, and their desire for progress. Yellow is linked to Guinea’s gold and the sun, which is described as a source of energy, generosity, and equality. Green represents the country’s vegetation, its ongoing prosperity from natural resources, and the challenging life of rural communities. These meanings were set out by the first president, Sékou Touré, and connect with the national motto: Work, Justice, Solidarity.

How the colours were chosen of Guinea

The colours were first used by the Democratic Party of Guinea before independence, inspired by the Pan-African movement and the flag of Ghana. When Guinea became independent in 1958, it chose these colours to signal both its African identity and its break from French colonial rule. The flag’s design, a tricolour, nods to the French flag but uses the Pan-African palette. Guinea’s flag is also the reverse of Mali’s flag, and similar to the flag of Ghana, reflecting close political ties. After independence, Guinea and Ghana formed a union with a shared flag using these colours.

Official shades and rules of Guinea

The only official rule for the Guinean flag is that the three stripes must be of equal width. There is no official specification for the exact shades of red, yellow, or green. The order of the colours is red at the hoist, followed by yellow and then green.