Flag of Malawi

What the flag of Malawi looks like

The flag of Malawi has three horizontal bands of equal height: black at the top, red in the middle and green at the bottom. The ratio is 2:3. In the center of the black band is a red half-sun that is rising from the lower edge of the band, with rays spreading upward.

The flag resembles the Pan-African flag designed by the Universal Negro Improvement Association, founded and led by Marcus Garvey, with the red and black bands reversed and a red sun at the top. It also resembles the flag of the former Republic of Biafra.

Malawi flag meaning and symbolism

The commonly cited meanings are:

• Black stands for the indigenous people of the African continent.
• Red stands for the blood of their struggle.
• Green stands for nature.
• The red rising sun stands for the dawn of hope and freedom for Malawi and for Africa as a whole.

The sun also appears in the coat of arms of Malawi. When the flag was created, more and more countries in Africa were gaining independence from European rule.

History of the Malawi flag

Before independence the area was the British-ruled Nyasaland, which flew British ensigns with the colonial badge. Nyasaland became independent and was renamed Malawi on 6 July 1964, and the black, red and green flag with a rising sun was adopted for the new state.

On 29 July 2010 a new flag, proposed by the government of President Bingu wa Mutharika, was adopted. Its stripes were reordered to match the original Pan-African flag, red at the top, black in the middle and green at the bottom, and the rising sun was replaced with a full, centered white sun with 45 rays, said to represent the economic progress Malawi had made since independence. The change was unpopular, many people saw it as undemocratic, and the opposition United Democratic Front said it would challenge it in court.

On 28 May 2012, under new president Joyce Banda, parliament voted to revert to the independence flag. It has been in use since.