Flag of Angola

An overview

The national flag of Angola is a horizontal bicolor — a red band above a black band — charged in the center with a yellow emblem: a machete crossed by a half cogwheel and crowned with a five-pointed star. The ratio is 2:3.

It is a liberation movement’s banner made national. The MPLA carried red over black with a yellow star through the war of independence; at independence on November 11, 1975, the machete and cogwheel joined the star, and the party flag became the state flag. It has flown unchanged since — through the end of the People’s Republic in 1992, past a formal proposal to replace it in 2003, and into the constitution of 2010, whose Annex I defines both its design and, unusually among national flags, its official meaning.

The flag serves as national flag and ensign alike, and the president’s standard carries the same emblem — with two olive branches added — on a plain red field.

The machete, the cogwheel, and the star

The yellow charge is the flag’s signature, and the constitution reads it precisely: the machete is the peasants, agriculture, and the war of independence; the half cogwheel is the workers and industry; the star is international solidarity and progress; the yellow itself is Angola’s wealth.

Its lineage is the socialist iconography of its era. Vexillologist Whitney Smith noted the emblem’s resemblance to the hammer, sickle, and star of the Soviet flag, and traced the flag’s probable model to the banner of the Viet Cong — red over light blue with a central yellow star — which liberation movements worldwide admired and which the MPLA adapted by setting the star on black, for the African people.

Design and official specification

Two texts govern the flag. Annex I of the constitution defines the design — the two bands and the emblem. Section 2.1 of the government’s manual of graphic and protocol standards for national symbols fixes its reproduction: the flag may be made in any size so long as the ratio is 2:3, and the emblem and bands must match the manual’s construction sheet — any other arrangement is treated as a distortion of the flag.

Official color specification

The manual names the flag’s three colors — Angola red, Angola yellow, and process black — and fixes their shades. The red and yellow carry the country’s name in the standard itself.

Symbolism and meaning

Angola is one of the countries whose flag’s meaning is not tradition but law: Annex I of the constitution assigns each color and each element its significance.

The wording has softened with the state: in the original 1975 constitution the red stood for “revolution” and the star for “internationalism” — today it is the defense of the country, and international solidarity.

How the flag evolved

The design’s whole history spans one movement and one night: a guerrilla banner of the 1960s, a midnight proclamation in 1975 — and, since then, one serious attempt at replacement that the public turned down.

1. 1960s

   The MPLA banner

   

   Through the war of independence (1961–1974) the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola flew red over black with a central yellow star. The probable model, by Whitney Smith's analysis, was the Viet Cong flag — with a black band for the African people in place of its light blue.

2. 1975

   Independence

   

   At noon on November 10, 1975, the Portuguese flag came down in Luanda and sovereignty passed to the Angolan people. At midnight the MPLA proclaimed the People's Republic of Angola, and the party's banner — its star now joined by the machete and half cogwheel — became the national flag. It has flown unchanged since, outlasting the People's Republic itself: the state was renamed the Republic of Angola in 1992 with the flag untouched.

3. 2003

   The flag that never flew

   

   After the civil war ended in 2002, a public competition for new symbols chose a design submitted as "Catica": red between white and blue bands, centered on a yellow sun drawn from the ancient rock paintings of Tchitundu-Hulu. Amid public disagreement it was never adopted — and the 2010 constitution carried the 1975 flag, its meanings gently reworded, into the present.

Who designed the Angolan flag?

Henrique de Carvalho Santos is credited with the design. His task was less invention than adaptation: the base was the MPLA’s existing red-over-black banner with its yellow star, to which the machete and half cogwheel were added for the national flag — labor and industry joining the movement’s star.

The party flag itself has a traceable ancestry: Whitney Smith identified the Viet Cong flag as its probable inspiration, its light blue exchanged for black to stand for the African people.

Legal status and display rules

The flag is defined in Annex I of the constitution and protected under Angolan law — improper use or handling of it is a criminal offense. The practical rules live in Section 2.1 of the national-symbols manual: any institution or individual may fly the flag under its protocols, and public institutions display it at their headquarters.

Government institutions raise the flag daily outside their headquarters; in general it flies on Sundays, public holidays, and days of official ceremony, and the president, the National Assembly, and the courts may order it raised on any other day. It is hoisted from 9 a.m. to sunset, illuminated by projectors where possible if flown at night. In periods of national mourning the flag — and any flag flown beside it — goes to half-mast, raised first to the top of the pole on the way down and again on the way back up.

Things you may not know

The meaning is law. Most flags accumulate their symbolism by tradition; Angola’s is assigned by the constitution itself, element by element — and the state has edited it. “Revolution” and “internationalism” in 1975 became “defense of the country” and “international solidarity” in the current text.

A new flag won a prize and never flew. After the civil war, a 2003 public competition selected a red, white, and blue design with a fifteen-ray sun drawn from the Tchitundu-Hulu rock paintings, submitted under the pseudonym Catica — a medal and a $20,000 award were announced. Public attachment to the independence flag kept it off the flagpoles.

The emblem names its era. A machete for the peasants, a cogwheel for the workers, a star above them — Whitney Smith’s comparison to the Soviet hammer, sickle, and star is hard to unsee, and the flag’s probable model, the Viet Cong banner, ties it to the liberation movements of its generation.