page_title: Flag of Ethiopia
section_title: Colours
hierarchical_section_title: Flag of Ethiopia / Colours
caption_attribution_description: English: Ethiopian flags
context_page_description: The national flag of Ethiopia was adopted on 31 October 1912. The three traditional colours of green, yellow and red date back to Iyasu V. The green recalls the land, yellow stands for peace and hope, and red is symbolic of strength.
context_section_description: The Green, Yellow and Red were used for the flag of the Ethiopian Empire in 1914. A year after Ethiopia decisively defended itself from Italian colonization at the Battle of Adwa, Menelik II on 6 October 1897 ordered the three pennants combined in a rectangular tricolour from top to bottom of red, yellow, and green with the first letter of his own name (the Amharic letter "ም") on the central stripe. In 1914, the current flag was brought back. The flag's tri-colour scheme has existed since the early 19th century, and the colours red, yellow, and green have carried special importance since at least the early 17th century.
  The royal flag often featured the emblem of a Lion of Judah, a crowned lion carrying a cross centred in the banner's yellow midsection. The flag is understood to be a link between the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the peoples, and the nation that was united. The processional cross carried by the lion was the former flag or symbol of Ethiopia, and has likewise been in use since at least the early 17th century. Whilst red is currently featured at the bottom of the horizontal tricolour, this was reversed until the mid-19th century. The emblem was added in 1996. What the colours symbolise varies depending on point of view. However, generally, red represents blood spilled in defence of Ethiopia; yellow represents peace and harmony between Ethiopia's various ethnic and religious groups; and green is said to symbolise hope, or the land and its fertility. Upon gaining independence from colonial rule, several newly established countries in Africa adopted these three colours in homage to Ethiopia's resistance against foreign occupation. When adopted by Pan-Africanist polities and organisations for their activities, the colours are often referred to as the Pan-African colours.
caption: Ethiopia's national and regional flags
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