The national flag of Mali (drapeau national du Mali) is a tricolour with three equal vertical stripes. From the hoist (the place where the flagpole meets the flag) the colours are green, gold, and red, the pan-African colours. The flag of Mali is almost identical to the flag of Guinea, with the exception that the colours are in reverse order.

History

The current flag was adopted on 1 March 1961. The original flag was adopted on 4 April 1959, when Mali joined the Mali Federation. This flag was the same, except the golden stripe had a black kanaga, a shape of a squatter man with arms raised to the sky. The figure was removed due to the opposition, in a country whose population is 90% Muslim (95% Sunni 5% Shia), of Islamic fundamentalists (see Aniconism in Islam, the belief against making pictures of the human figure).

Symbolism

The green stands for fertility of the land, gold stands for purity and mineral wealth, and the red symbolizes the blood shed for independence from the French.

Colour scheme

Historical flags

Other flags