South Africa

Specification

Schedule 1 of the Constitution defines a rectangular flag one and a half times as long as it is wide. A green Y-shaped band begins at the upper and lower hoist corners and converges toward the center before continuing horizontally to the fly.

Display colors

Construction notes

The green band is one fifth of the flag’s width and is edged in white against the red and blue fields. Its hoist arms are edged in gold against the black triangle. Each edging is one fifteenth of the flag’s width; the red and blue fields each occupy one third. Six separate fills are therefore structurally necessary even before any color values are chosen.

Historical record

State Herald Frederick Brownell designed the flag during South Africa’s transition to democracy. It was first used on 27 April 1994 and was retained in Schedule 1 of the 1996 Constitution.

Source trail

South African Government: Constitution, Schedule 1—National Flag ↗

South African Government: national flag history ↗

Understanding the construction measurements

The ratio 2:3 means height to length: a flag two units high is three units long. The hoist is the flagpole edge; the fly is the opposite, free edge.

In Schedule 1, the flag’s width means its height. The green band’s width is 1/5 of that height, and each white or gold edging is 1/15. These are linear measurements, not shares of the flag’s area.

The red and blue bands are each 1/3 of the flag’s height at the fly. The imported construction notes’ “one third” should be read as a band-width measurement, not a claim that either color covers one third of the total area: the Y and hoist triangle interrupt the fields toward the flagpole.