- See also: List of Colombian flags
The flag of Colombia was adopted on November 26, 1861. It is a horizontal tricolour of yellow, blue and red. The yellow stripe takes up the top half of the flag and the blue and red take up a quarter of the space each.
Symbolism and Design
The horizontal stripes (from top to bottom) of yellow, blue and red tricolour have a ration of 2:1:1.
According to the current interpretation, the colours signify:
- Yellow: represents the richness of the Colombian land.
- Blue: represents the seas on Colombia's shores.
- Red: represents the blood spilled on the battlegrounds by the heroes who gained Colombia's freedom.
Other variations on the interpretation of the colours exist, such as, "Yellow, for the sun and land of the people. Blue, for the water that holds up the people and finally, Red, for the blood shed by the people who fought for the independence of Colombia."
Although there are no regulations stating the shape of the flag, it traditionally is established at 2:3.
History
Beginnings
Flag of Colombian on the ARC Gloria tall ship
Francisco de Miranda was the person who originally created the common yellow, blue and red flag of Gran Colombia that Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, with slight variations, share today. Miranda gave at least two sources of inspiration for his flag. In a letter written to Count Simon Romanovich Woronzoff (Vorontsov) in 1792, Miranda stated that the colours were based on a theory of primary colours given to him by the German writer and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Miranda described a late-night conversation which he had with Goethe at a party in Weimar during the winter of 1785. Fascinated with Miranda's account of his exploits in the US Revolutionary War and his travels throughout the Americas and Europe, Goethe told him that, "Your destiny is to create in your land a place where primary colours are not distorted.” He proceeded to clarify what he meant:
First he explained to me the way the iris transforms light into the three primary colours […] then he proved to me why yellow is the most warm, noble and closest to [white] light; why blue is that mix of excitement and serenity, a distance that evokes shadows; and why red is the exaltation of yellow and blue, the synthesis, the vanishing of light into shadow.
It is not that the world is made of yellows, blues and reds; it is that in this manner, as if in an infinite combination of these three colours, we human beings see it. […] A country [Goethe concluded] starts out from a name and a flag, and it then becomes them, just as a man fulfils his destiny.
After Miranda later designed his flag based on this conversation, he happily recalled seeing a fresco by Lazzaro Tavarone in the Palazzo Belimbau in Genoa that depicted Christopher Columbus unfurling a similar-coloured flag in Veragua during his fourth voyage.1
In his military diary, Miranda gave another source of inspiration: the yellow, blue and red standard of the Burgers' Guard (Bürgerwache) of Hamburg, which he also saw during his travels in Germany.2
Great Colombia
United States of Colombia
Colombia Republic
Past flags
 Republic of the New Granada, 1831–1858. Flag ratio: 2:3
Flag of the Granadine Confederation, 1858–1863. Flag ratio: 2:3
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References
- ^ Serpa Erazo, Jorge, [summary of Ricardo Silva Romero's] "La Bandera del Mundo." Pañol de la Historia. Part 1, Section 1 (July 30, 2004). ISSN 1900-3447. Retrieved on 2008-12-02
- ^ Dousdebés, Pedro Julio, "Las insignias de Colombia," Boletín de historia y antigüedades, August 1937, 462, cited in Nelson González Ortega, "Formación de la iconografía nacional en Colombia: una lectura semiótico-social," Revista de Estudios Colombianos, No. 16 (1996), 20.
See also
External links
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Republic of the New Granada, 1831–1858. Flag ratio: 2:3
