The colours of pride

Tyrian purple, made from sea snails at Tyre in today's Lebanon, was so costly that Rome reserved the richest purple robes for the emperor.

Under the Ming and Qing dynasties bright yellow was the emperor's colour. To be 'draped in the yellow robe' still means to take the throne.

The court rank system introduced in 603 gave the highest officials purple caps, and deep purple stayed a colour of high rank for centuries.

Kente, woven in strips by Asante and Ewe weavers, was royal dress. Its gold-yellow is widely explained as standing for wealth and kingship.

Gilbert Baker made the first rainbow flag for the 1978 Gay Freedom Day parade in San Francisco. The common version has six stripes.

The red, black and green Pan-African flag was adopted in 1920 by the movement led by Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey, as a sign of Black pride.

The national Māori flag, in red, black and white, was chosen in 1990 and stands for tino rangatiratanga, Māori self-determination.

Yellow is the colour of Monday, the birthday of King Bhumibol, and Thais have worn yellow shirts to honour the monarchy.

The flag uses the four Pan-Arab colours: a red bar at the hoist with green, white and black bands. It was designed by a young Emirati, Abdullah Al Maainah, in 1971.

The flag is a black double-headed eagle on red, the banner of the fifteenth-century hero Skanderbeg. Fans chant Kuq e Zi, red and black.

The black eagle gives the country its own name for itself: Shqiperia is commonly read as the land of the eagles.

The lowest band of the flag is orange, often called apricot, after the national fruit. The constitution says it stands for the creative talent and hard work of the people.

The flag is sky blue, white and sky blue, created by Manuel Belgrano in 1812. National teams are called the Albiceleste, the white and sky blue.

Boca Juniors play in blue and gold. The club's story is that in 1907 it took the colours of the flag of the next ship into port, which was Swedish.

The golden Sun of May at the centre of the flag recalls the May Revolution of 1810. Its face is linked with Inti, the Inca sun god.

Green and gold have been the official national colours since 1984 and are worn by national sports teams. They echo the leaves and flowers of the golden wattle.

A Test cricketer is given a dark green cap, the baggy green, on first playing for Australia. Many players wear the same faded cap for a whole career.

The black upper half of the Aboriginal flag stands for the Aboriginal people of Australia.

The flag is a red disc on a green field. The red is read both as the sun rising over Bengal and as the blood of those who died in the 1971 Liberation War.

The national football team is called the Red Devils, a name first used by a journalist in 1906 for the side's red shirts.

The Flemish flag is a black lion on yellow, and the Walloon flag a red cockerel on yellow. The language communities are often shown by these colours.

The black, yellow and red of the flag come from the arms of the Duchy of Brabant: a gold lion with red claws and tongue on black. They were raised in the 1830 revolution.