The Secret History Behind Eritrea's Flag
Eritrea's flag has an olive wreath with 30 leaves, and the number is not an accident.
The current flag was adopted on December 5, 1995. It replaced a temporary flag that had been used since independence in 1993. It is based on the banner of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, with the front's yellow star replaced by an olive branch inside an olive wreath. That emblem recalls the flag of 1952, when Eritrea was an autonomous unit federated with Ethiopia.
The design is a red triangle on the hoist side, pointing to the fly, with a green triangle above and a blue one below. Green is read as agriculture and livestock, blue as the bounty of the sea, and red as the blood shed in the fight for freedom.
The thirty leaves of the wreath stand for the thirty years of the independence struggle, and the olive is a universal sign of peace.
The date printed on every Eritrea design in our catalog, May 24, 1993, is Independence Day.
Thirty leaves, one for every year.
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