🇲🇺 The colours of Mauritius

Mauritius uses four horizontal bands of red, blue, yellow, and green on its flag. Each colour stands for a part of the country's story: freedom, the Indian Ocean, the light of liberty, and the land's year-round greenery. The colours also reflect the main political groups at independence.

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

• The flag is known as The Four Bands (Les Quatre Bandes).
• Each colour also stood for a political party at independence.
• The flag's colours and sizes are set by law.
• Gurudutt Moher, a retired teacher, designed the flag.
• Red, blue, yellow, and green bands are always equal in width.

The colours of the flag of Mauritius

The Mauritian flag is made up of four equal horizontal stripes: red at the top, then blue, yellow, and green. Each colour has an official meaning. Red is for the fight for freedom and independence. Blue stands for the Indian Ocean, which surrounds the island. Yellow is described as the light of freedom shining over Mauritius. Green represents the country's agriculture and the fact that the land stays green throughout the year. These meanings are set by law.

How the colours were chosen of Mauritius

The flag was adopted when Mauritius became independent in 1968. Its colours were chosen not only for their symbolic meanings but also to represent the main political parties at the time: red for the social-democrat Parti Travailliste, blue for the conservative PMSD, yellow for the socialist IFB, and green for the CAM party, which represented Muslim Indo-Mauritians. The flag was designed by Gurudutt Moher, a retired school teacher.

Official shades and rules of Mauritius

The flag's colours and their order are set by law. The official shades are defined using Pantone codes for textiles. The law also states that the bands must be equal in width, and any overlap between two colours should not be more than one millimetre. The flag's proportions are fixed at a 2:3 ratio.