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[1] (see Aniconism in Islam, the belief against making pictures of the human figure).[2]
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.[3]
A reconstruction of the banner used by Musa I on the hajj, a possible historical flag of the Mali Empire. It consisted of a yellow rectangle centered on a red field.
The French tricolor was used as the official flag of French Sudan for most of its history.
1958–1959
2:3
A new flag was adopted in 1958, when French Sudan gained autonomy within the French Community. It consisted of the French tricolor with a black Kanaga centered on the white band.
The flag initially adopted on Malian independence consisted of a vertical tricolor of green, gold, and red with a black Kanaga centered on the gold band.
^The colonial region of French Sudan went through a number of administrative reorganizations between 1880 and 1959, changing names several times throughout the process. See: French Sudan § Administration and jurisdiction
References
^"Flag of Mali". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2019-04-09. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
^Guide to the Flags of the World by Mauro Talocci, revised and updated by Whitney Smith (ISBN0-688-01141-1), p. 124.
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