- published: 07 Nov 2011
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The flag of Ghana was designed and adopted in 1957 and was flown until 1962, and then reinstated in 1966. It consists of the Pan-African colours of red, yellow, and green, in horizontal stripes, with a black five-pointed star in the centre of the gold stripe. The Ghanaian flag was the second African flag after the flag of Ethiopia to feature these colours.
The black star was adopted from the flag of the Black Star Line, a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey that operated from 1919 to 1922, and gives the Ghana national football team their nickname, the Black Stars.
The flag was designed by Theodosia Okoh. The red represents the blood of those who died in the country's struggle for independence from the United Kingdom, the gold represents the mineral wealth of the country, the green symbolises the country's rich forests and natural wealth, and the black star is the symbol of African emancipation.
The flag's design influenced that of the flag of Guinea-Bissau (1973).
Coordinates: 8°N 2°W / 8°N 2°W / 8; -2
Ghana (i/ˈɡɑːnə/), officially called the Republic of Ghana, is a sovereign unitary presidential constitutional democracy, located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the subregion of West Africa. Spanning a land mass of 238,535 km2, Ghana is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east and the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean in the south. The word Ghana means "Warrior King" in Mande.
The territory of present-day Ghana has been inhabited for millennia, with the first permanent state dating back to the 11th century. Numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful was the Kingdom of Ashanti. Beginning in the 15th century, numerous European powers contested the area for trading rights, with the British ultimately establishing control of the coast by the late 19th century. Following over a century of native resistance, Ghana's current borders were established by the 1900s as the British Gold Coast. In 1957, it became the first sub-saharan African nation to declare independence from European colonisation.