Flag of Argentina

An overview

The national flag of Argentina — la celeste y blanca — is a horizontal triband of light blue, white, and light blue, with the golden Sun of May centered on the white band. The ratio is 5:8, and the sun carries a face and 32 rays, 16 straight and 16 wavy.

General Manuel Belgrano created it in the colors of the patriots’ cockade and first raised it at Rosario on February 27, 1812. The Congress of Tucumán made it the national flag in 1816, the year of independence, and added the sun in 1818. Two versions coexist by law: the Official Ceremony Flag with the sun, and the sunless Ornamental Flag, which is always hoisted below it — both equally the national flag.

Few flags traveled further: Britannica credits the Argentine design with influencing the flags of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, along with neighboring Uruguay, which flies a Sun of May of its own.

The Sun of May

The sun commemorates the May Revolution of 1810, when — by the tradition the flag preserves — the sun broke through the clouds over Buenos Aires as the new government took power. Its design is exact: a replica of the sun engraved on the first Argentine coin, approved in 1813, with 16 straight and 16 wavy rays around a face.

Rules from 1978 fix its color as golden yellow and its diameter at five-sixths of the white band’s height, embroidered on the ceremony flag. The historian Diego Abad de Santillán read the emblem as the Inca sun god Inti — an interpretation, not a statute, but one the sun’s Andean face invites.

Design and official specification

The modern specification came in layers: rules of 1978 set an official size of 0.9 by 1.4 meters (35.4 by 55.1 inches), the standards institute IRAM fixed the proportions at 5:8 in 2002, and a presidential decree of November 2010 standardized the exact colors, proportions, and aspect ratio in force today. Argentina shares the 5:8 ratio with only four other national flags — Guatemala, Palau, Poland, and Sweden.

Official color specification

Argentina defines its flag colors scientifically: the IRAM norms, published through the National Belgrano Institute, specify them in CIE 1976 colorimetry — the celeste, the sun’s yellow, and the brown of its lines each pinned to L*a*b* coordinates. The values below are the institute’s published Pantone and screen equivalents.

Symbolism and meaning

Argentine law fixes the flag’s form with unusual precision — and leaves its meaning alone. Historians say the origin of the colors cannot be established with certainty; what is certain is where they were first worn.

Even the first flag’s exact shade is contested — historians and Belgrano’s own descendants disagree over blue versus pale blue.

How the flag evolved

The design has barely changed since 1818; nearly everything else about it has — who could fly it, at what size and shade, and under whose law. The story runs from a refused war banner to a flag defined in colorimetry.

1. 1812

   Belgrano's banner

   

   The light blue and white came from the patriots' cockade; why those colors were chosen has never been settled — theories run from Bourbon ribbons to the Buenos Aires arms to the plumes of the Patricios of 1806. General Manuel Belgrano proposed a flag to the government on February 26, 1812, and raised it at Rosario the next day, February 27. The Triumvirate refused it; the Assembly of Year XIII allowed it as a war flag.

2. 1818

   The Sun of May

   

   The Congress of Tucumán made the triband the national flag in 1816, and on February 25, 1818, added the golden Sun of May — a replica of the engraving on the first Argentine coin of 1813, recalling the May Revolution of 1810. Provinces long flew flags of their own; the 1861 victory at Pavón united the republic, and with it the flag — though its exact shade and ratio drifted for more than a century.

3. 2010

   Specified to the decimal

   

   The modern era pinned the flag down. Decree 10.302 of 1944 named the sun flag the Official Flag but reserved it to governments; Law 23.208 of 1985 gave it to every citizen. IRAM fixed the proportions at 5:8 in 2002, and a presidential decree of November 2010 standardized the exact colors — defined in CIE colorimetry — the proportions, and the aspect ratio in force today.

Who designed the Argentine flag?

General Manuel Belgrano — lawyer, economist, and one of the leaders of the war of independence. He had already created the national cockade in light blue and white; on February 26, 1812, he proposed a flag in the same colors to the government, and raised it at Rosario the next day. The First Triumvirate refused to approve it, and Belgrano carried it anyway; the Assembly of Year XIII later allowed it as a war flag.

The country keeps his date, not the government’s: Flag Day is June 20, the anniversary of Belgrano’s death in 1820, and its ceremonies center on the National Flag Memorial in Rosario — a 10,000-square-meter (108,000-square-foot) complex built where he first raised the flag.

Legal status and display rules

Decree 10.302 of 1944 names the flag with the sun — the design approved in 1818 — the Official Flag of the Nation. Its Article 3 reserved that flag to federal and provincial governments, leaving citizens the sunless version; Law 23.208 of 1985 repealed the restriction, giving governments and individuals alike the right to the Official Flag. The sunless Ornamental Flag remains in use, always hoisted below the ceremony flag.

Private display has its own history: only in 1869 did President Sarmiento authorize flags on homes and buildings during national holidays, ending an outright prohibition. Flag Day, June 20, was made a national holiday by Law 12.361 in 1938, and the November 2010 decree completed the modern framework by fixing the flag’s exact colors, proportions, and aspect ratio.

Things you may not know

The colors are defined in colorimetry. The IRAM norms pin the celeste, yellow, and brown to CIE 1976 L*a*b* coordinates — the flag’s shades are a matter of measurement, not of eye.

Only five flags are 5:8. Since IRAM set the ratio in 2002, Argentina has shared its proportions with just Guatemala, Palau, Poland, and Sweden.

The sun was government-only for 41 years. From the 1944 decree to the 1985 law, ordinary Argentines could fly only the sunless flag; the Sun of May belonged to the state. Since 1985, it belongs to everyone.