Colours of politics and protest

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.

Under Juan Manuel de Rosas in the 1830s and 1840s, everyone had to wear a scarlet ribbon to show loyalty to his Federalist party. His enemies, the Unitarians, were tied to sky blue.

The flag is red, white and red. Legend says Duke Leopold V's white tunic was soaked in blood at the siege of Acre, all but the band under his belt.

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 flag is red, yellow and green: red for the blood of the country's soldiers, yellow for its mineral wealth and green for the richness of its land.

Red is the colour of the Workers' Party, founded in 1980, whose symbol is a red star. Its rallies are a sea of red shirts and flags.

A white, red and white flag was the state flag in 1918 and again from 1991 to 1995. It became the banner of the opposition in the protests of 2020.

Red and white are the national colours. The flag, a red maple leaf between two red bars, was adopted in 1965 after a long debate in parliament.

The flag is a white cross on a red square, one of only two square national flags. The Red Cross emblem is the same design with the colours reversed, in honour of Switzerland.

The copihue, a climbing plant with waxy red bell flowers, is the national flower. The men's football team plays in red and is called La Roja.

The flag is green, red and yellow with a gold star. Green is for the forests of the south, yellow for the sun and savanna of the north, and red for unity.

The national flag is red with five yellow stars. The red stands for the Communist revolution, and the same red runs through party banners and slogans.

For a century and a half, politics was a contest between the red of the Liberals and the blue of the Conservatives. Their fighting peaked in the years called La Violencia.

The 26th of July Movement, which Fidel Castro led to power in 1959, flew a red and black flag. It still appears beside the national flag on public holidays.

Red is the colour of the Social Democrats. Coalitions are named by party colours: red, yellow and green make a "traffic light", and black, yellow and green a "Jamaica" coalition.

The flag, the Dannebrog, is a white cross on red. Legend says it fell from the sky during a battle in Estonia in 1219. Danes use it on birthday tables and Christmas trees.

The flag is red, white and black. Red recalls the struggle before the 1952 revolution, white the revolution itself, which was nearly bloodless, and black the end of oppression.

The flag is red and yellow, the rojigualda. The colours were chosen for the navy in 1785 because they stood out at sea, and the men's football team is called La Roja.

The red band of the flag is read as the blood shed in defending the country. Ethiopia was never colonised, and its green, yellow and red were taken up by many new African states.

The red Phrygian cap, a soft cap with the tip pulled forward, became the sign of liberty in the Revolution. Marianne, the figure of the Republic, still wears it.

Red is the colour of the Labour Party, whose symbol is a red rose, and blue the colour of the Conservatives. Election maps are drawn in the two.

The flag has a large red cross on white with four small crosses. It was a medieval banner brought back into use by the opposition and made official in 2004.

The flag is red, gold and green with a black star. The red is for the blood of those who died in the struggle for independence, won in 1957.

The flag is red with a white bauhinia flower. The red matches the flag of China, and the design stands for the formula of one country, two systems.

The red and white chequerboard, the sahovnica, is the heart of the national arms. It covers the shirts of national sports teams.

The flag is blue over red. Tradition says Jean-Jacques Dessalines made it in 1803 by tearing the white band out of the French tricolour.

The flag is red, white and green: red for strength, white for faithfulness and green for hope. On 15 March people pin on a cockade in the three colours.

The flag is called Sang Saka Merah Putih, the Red and White. Red is commonly read as courage and white as purity. It was raised at the declaration of independence in 1945.

The red and white checked headcloth, the shemagh, is a mark of Jordanian identity. It was the headdress of the desert patrol and is worn with a black cord.

The flag is black, red and green with white edging and a Maasai shield. The red is for the blood shed in the fight for independence.

The flag is red with a yellow sun. Red is tied to the banner of the epic hero Manas, and the sun's forty rays to the forty tribes he united.

The national flag carries a red and blue circle, the taegeuk. Red is the positive force and blue the negative, the two in balance, on a white ground that stands for peace and purity.

In 2005, after the killing of Rafic Hariri, crowds in red and white filled Beirut to demand that Syrian troops leave. The protests are called the Cedar Revolution.

The national flag sets a gold lion on a maroon panel, which stands for the Sinhalese majority. Four bo leaves in the corners are for the Buddhist virtues of kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity.

Red is the colour of the left, above all the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, whose supporters march in red on May Day.

The flag is dark red with a narrow white band, a shade often called Latvian red. Legend says a wounded chief was wrapped in a white sheet, which his blood stained on either side.

The flag is red with a green five-pointed star. Red has been the colour of the ruling Alaouite dynasty since the seventeenth century.

Monks wear robes of deep maroon. When thousands of them marched against the military government in 2007, the protests were named the Saffron Revolution.

The flag has red bands at each side of a blue one. Blue is for the sky, red for progress and prosperity, and the yellow Soyombo sign is a national emblem.

The flag is white and red. Tradition says Count Roger of Sicily gave the Maltese part of his chequered banner in 1090, though historians doubt the story.

The flag is green, white and red with an eagle on a cactus. Today the red is read as the blood of the national heroes, though it first stood for union.

The flag is red, white and blue. Its first stripe was orange, as in the Prince's Flag of the revolt against Spain, and had become red by the mid 1600s.

The flag is red with a blue cross edged in white. The colours were chosen in 1821 to echo the flags of free countries such as France and the United States.

Crimson is the national colour. It fills the flag, the only national flag that is not a rectangle, and it is the colour of the rhododendron, the national flower.

Until 1970 the flag was plain red, the old banner of the Gulf's seafaring rulers. The red band at the hoist of today's flag carries the crossed swords and dagger.

The flag is red, white and red. A well-known legend says Jose de San Martin chose the colours after seeing a flock of flamingos with red wings and white breasts.

The flag is red and black with a yellow bird of paradise and the Southern Cross. The three colours are the ones most used in the country's traditional art. A schoolgirl, Susan Karike, designed it.

The flag has a blue band over a red one. In wartime it is flown upside down with the red on top, a rule few other national flags share. Red stands for patriotism and valour.

The flag is white over red. The colours come from the national arms, a white eagle on a red shield, and were made official in 1831.

The logo of Solidarity, the free trade union founded in the Gdansk shipyard in 1980, is its name in red letters that look like a crowd carrying a flag.

The watermelon, red, green, white and black like the flag, became a stand-in for it in art and on social media at times when showing the flag was restricted.

The 1974 coup that ended the dictatorship is called the Carnation Revolution. People in Lisbon put red carnations in soldiers' rifle barrels, and the flower is worn every 25 April.

The red of the flag, adopted after the monarchy fell in 1910, stands for the blood of those who died for the nation.

The flag is maroon with a white band and a nine-pointed zigzag edge. The shade is linked with a purple-red dye once made from shellfish on the coast, which darkened in the sun.

Red was the colour of the 1917 revolution and of the Soviet flag with its hammer and sickle. In the civil war that followed, the Reds fought the Whites.

Men wear a red and white checked headcloth, the shemagh, held by a black cord. The pattern is so tied to the kingdom that it reads as national dress.

Red is the colour of the Social Democrats, the party that governed for most of the twentieth century. Its symbol is a red rose.

The flag is red over white with a crescent and five stars. Red stands for universal brotherhood and the equality of man, and white for lasting purity and virtue.

In the street protests of the late 2000s, supporters of the ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra wore red shirts, and their royalist opponents wore yellow.

The flag is red with a white disc holding a red crescent and star. It dates from the 1830s and is modelled on the Ottoman flag.

The flag is red with a red cross on a white corner. The red stands for the blood of Christ, and the constitution says the flag must never be changed.

The flag is red with a white crescent and star, and is called al bayrak, the red flag. It comes down from the late Ottoman flag.

The flag is red with a black stripe edged in white. Red is for the warmth of the sun and the vitality of the people, black for their dedication and white for the sea.

The red berries of the viburnum, kalyna, are a national symbol. The song Oi u luzi chervona kalyna, the red viburnum in the meadow, became an anthem of resistance after 2022.

Supporters of the opposition leader Bobi Wine wear red berets as the sign of his People Power movement. The government has tried to ban civilians from wearing them.

Since the television maps of the 2000 election, red has meant the Republican Party and blue the Democrats, giving the phrases red state and blue state. Before then the networks had no fixed scheme.

Supporters of Hugo Chavez and his movement wear red shirts and caps at rallies. Red became the colour of the government and its party after 1999.

The flag is red with a yellow star. Red stands for revolution and bloodshed, and the five points of the star for workers, peasants, soldiers, intellectuals and traders.

Members of the Economic Freedom Fighters wear red overalls and red berets, in parliament as well as at rallies, to show that they speak for workers.

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.

On 30 September people wear orange shirts to remember the children sent to residential schools. Phyllis Webstad's new orange shirt was taken from her on her first day at one.

Orange is also the colour of the New Democratic Party. Its sweep of Quebec seats in the 2011 election was called the Orange Wave.

The flag shows the island in copper orange on white. The colour recalls copper, which was mined here in ancient times and may have taken its name from Cyprus.

The orange stripe of the flag stands for Protestants, the followers of William of Orange. In Northern Ireland the Orange Order still marches each 12 July in orange sashes.

Opponents of the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza took orange as their colour, tying orange ribbons to cars and bags. Supporters of the plan answered with blue.

Saffron is the colour of renunciation, worn by Hindu sadhus, holy men who have given up worldly life. The top band of the national flag is saffron, which stands for strength and courage.

In the 2005 referendum on a new constitution, ballots showed a banana for yes and an orange for no. The no side won and became the Orange Democratic Movement.

The orange stripe on the flag stands for the Tamils. It was added, with a green stripe, in 1951 so that the minorities had a place on it.

The ribbon of Saint George has black and orange stripes. It comes from a Tsarist military order and is worn each 9 May, Victory Day.

Party colours are plain in Turkish elections: the governing AK Party uses orange with a light bulb, and the Republican People's Party uses red with six arrows.

In late 2004 crowds wearing orange filled Kyiv to protest against a rigged presidential election. The vote was rerun and the protests became known as the Orange Revolution.

The flag used from 1928 to 1994 was orange, white and blue, after the old Dutch Prince's Flag. It is now tied to the apartheid years, and displaying it has been ruled hate speech.

The flag is green with an eagle and three stripes. The orange stripe is for copper, the country's main export, and the football team is called the Copper Bullets.

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 yellow diamond of the flag is commonly said to stand for gold. It came from the House of Habsburg, the family of the first empress.

The flag is yellow, blue and red, with the yellow band twice as wide. Yellow is read as the gold and riches of the land, blue as the two oceans and red as the blood of independence.

Yellow is the colour of the liberal Free Democrats. To be "yellow with envy", gelb vor Neid, is the usual German phrase where English says green.

The yellow band of the flag stands for peace and hope. The three colours have flown together since the 1890s, in the reign of Menelik II.

From late 2018, protesters against fuel taxes and living costs wore the yellow high-visibility vests that every driver must carry. They became known as the gilets jaunes.