The national flag

Flag

A flag is a piece of fabric with a distinctive design that is usually rectangular and used as a symbol, as a signaling device, or decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed by a flag, or to its depiction in another medium.The first flags were used to assist...

 of Cape Verde

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

was adopted on September 22, 1992, replacing the flag adopted during Cape Verdean independence, fought for with Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau

The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....

, another former Portuguese colony on mainland West Africa.

Description

The 10 stars on the flag represent the main islands of the nation (a chain of islands off the coast of West Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

). The blue represents the ocean and the sky. The band of white and red represents the road toward the construction of the nation, and the colours stand for peace (white) and effort (red). The yellow colour, circular formation of the stars, and dark blue field show similarity to the flag of the European Union. The stripes are in 6:1:1:1:3 ratio, and the circle of stars is centred 3/8 along the fly.

Proportions

The Constitution of the Republic does not specify what the official proportions for the height and the width of the flag are. The dimensions of the parts that make up the flag are given proportionally to the dimensions of the sides, without specifying those dimensions. However, the proportion most widely used is 2:3, which is the same proportion that was used in the flag prior to 1992. Consequently, the proportion of 2:3 is the de facto

De facto

De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...

(but not de jure

De jure

De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....

) proportion.

Colour shades

The Constitution does not specify which are the official shades of the flag's colours. However, the most widely used colour shades are the primary colours of the RYB color model

RYB color model

RYB is a historical set of colors used in subtractive color mixing, and is one commonly used set of primary colors...

:

Color	Web colors Web colors Web colors are colors used in designing web pages, and the methods for describing and specifying those colors. Hexadecimal color codes begin with a hash ....	RGB RGB color model The RGB color model is an additive color model in which red, green, and blue light is added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors...	CMYK CMYK color model The CMYK color model is a subtractive color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. CMYK refers to the four inks used in some color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key...	HSV
Blue	#0000ff	0, 0, 255	100%, 100%, 0%, 0%	240, 100, 100%
White	#ffffff	255, 255, 255	0%, 0%, 0%, 0%	0, 0, 100%
Red	#ff0000	255, 0, 0	0%, 100%, 100%, 0%	0, 100, 100%
Yellow	#ffff00	255, 255, 0	0%, 0%, 100%, 0%	60, 100, 100%

Consequently, these colour shades are the de facto (but not de jure) colour shades.

History

The original flag was introduced on independence in 1975, based on that of the Partido Africano para a Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC), with the common African colours of red, green and yellow. It is identical to the flag of Guinea-Bissau

Flag of Guinea-Bissau

The flag of Guinea-Bissau was adopted in 1973 when independence from Portugal was proclaimed.- History :Like the former flag of Cape Verde, the flag is based on that of the Partido Africano para a Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde , still the dominant party in Guinea-Bissau...

 except for the charge

Charge (heraldry)

In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...

 in the hoist

Hoist

Hoist may refer to:*Hoist , a machine for lifting loads*hoist controller, a machine for raising and lowering goods or personnel by means of a cable*Hydraulic hooklift hoist, another machine* Hoist , another machine...

-side stripe. Their similarity evoked the plans to unite both countries, which, however, were abandoned shortly after independence.

External links