The

national National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

flag of Cameroon (french: drapeau du Cameroun) was adopted in its present form on 20 May 1975 after Cameroon became a unitary state. It is a vertical tricolour of green, red and yellow, with a yellow five-pointed star in its center. There is a wide variation in the size of the central star, although it is always contained within the inside stripe.

Description

The colour scheme uses the traditional

Pan-African colours Pan-African colours is a term that may refer to two different sets of colours: * Green, yellow and red, the colours of the flag of Ethiopia, have come to represent the pan-Africanist ideology due to the country's history of having avoided being ...

(Cameroon was the second state to adopt them). The centre stripe is thought to stand for unity: red is the colour of unity, and the star is referred to as "the star of unity". The yellow stands for the sun, and also the savannas in the northern part of the country, while the green is for the forests in the southern part of Cameroon. The previous flag of Cameroon, used from 1961 to 1975, had a similar colour scheme, but with two gold (darker than the third stripe by comparison) stars in the upper half of the green. It was adopted after British

Southern Cameroons The Southern Cameroons was the southern part of the British Empire, British League of Nations mandate territory of the British Cameroons in West Africa. Since 1961, it has been part of the Republic of Cameroon, where it makes up the Northwest Re ...

joined the state of Cameroon. ''The International Flag Book in Color'', Christian Fogd Pedersen (1971) The original flag, made law by Law No. 46 of 26 October 1957, was the simple tricolour. It was confirmed on 21 February 1960 in the new constitution.

Military flags and ensigns

Military flags and ensigns of Cameroon are following British practice with different designs.

Colors

Other flags

File:Reichskolonialflagge.svg, Flag of the German Colonial Office File:Flag of Deutsch-Kamerun.svg, Flag of

German Cameroon Kamerun was an African colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1916 in the region of today's Republic of Cameroon. Kamerun also included northern parts of Gabon and the Congo with western parts of the Central African Republic, southwestern ...

(proposed but never used) File:Flag of France (1794–1815, 1830–1974, 2020–present).svg, Flag of French Cameroon (1916–1960) File:British Cameroon Flag.svg, Flag of British Cameroons (1922–1961) File:Flag of Cameroon (1957).svg, Flag of the State of Cameroon (1957–1960), then Republic of Cameroon (1960–1961). File:Flag of Cameroon (1961-1975).svg, Flag of the Federal Republic of Cameroon (1961–1975)

Similar colours

The flag of Cameroon uses the Pan-African colors that is used by many African countries in the region, most notably with similar designs in the flags of Senegal,

Guinea Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the we ...

and Mali.

References

External links

* {{nationalflags Cameroon National symbols of Cameroon Cameroon Cameroon