Flag of Costa Rica

Costa Rica’s plain flag has five horizontal stripes: blue, white, red, white, and blue. The red center stripe is twice the height of each other stripe. Its width:height ratio is 5:3. The plain flag has no emblem; the state pavilion adds the national coat of arms.

Law 10178 gives official meanings for all three colors. Blue represents the sky of Costa Rica, white represents peace, and red represents the blood of those who fell for freedom. These meanings appear in the current statute and should be distinguished from additional interpretations found in older explanatory accounts.

The five-stripe design was adopted on September 29, 1848, during José María Castro Madriz’s presidency. The first ceremonial raising followed on November 12, 1848, in San José’s Plaza Mayor, now Parque Central. Adoption and first raising are different events, so the two dates do not conflict.

Pacífica Fernández Oreamuno is credited with participating in the creation of the 1848 flag. The Ministry of Public Education’s historical account identifies French inspiration. Her design contribution should be distinguished from the government decree that adopted the symbols and from the ceremony at which the pavilion was first raised.

The bandera nacional is the plain five-stripe national flag. The pabellón nacional adds the national arms on a white ellipse toward the hoist. Law 10178 treats them separately: the flag has broad national uses, while the pavilion is the state’s principal ceremonial symbol and has more restricted uses.

Yes. The plain national flag is an official form in its own right, defined in the opening chapter of Law 10178. It is not an incomplete pavilion. The coat of arms distinguishes the ceremonial pavilion, whose routine display is reserved to particular institutions, offices, and authorized occasions.

The ratio is 5:3 width:height, equivalent to 3:5 height:width. Article 2 of Law 10178 gives a model two meters long and 1.20 meters high and requires proportional enlargements or reductions. Always label the dimension order so that a ratio is not mistaken for an upright rectangle.

Measured vertically, their heights are in the ratio 1:1:2:1:1. Each blue or white stripe occupies one-sixth of the total flag height, while the red stripe occupies one-third. On the law’s 200 × 120 cm model, the stripe heights are 20, 20, 40, 20, and 20 cm.

On the plain flag, yes. The two blue stripes together occupy one-third of the rectangle, the two white stripes another third, and the red center the final third. This is a calculation from the stripe proportions. The pavilion’s white ellipse and multicolored arms change the visible color areas.

Yes. Article 2 of Law 10178 names Pantone Reflex Blue for blue and Pantone 485 C for red. It names white without a Pantone number. The hexadecimal and RGB values shown in this article are selected screen approximations; those digital codes are not written into the law.

The arms sit on a white ellipse in the red stripe, toward the hoist. On the 200 × 120 cm model, the ellipse is 30 cm high and 20 cm wide, with its center 60 cm from the hoist. It is not centered across the full flag width.

The seven stars on the national arms represent San José, Alajuela, Cartago, Heredia, Guanacaste, Puntarenas, and Limón, Costa Rica’s seven provinces. Article 9 names them explicitly. The stars belong to the arms on the pavilion; the ordinary plain national flag has no stars or other emblem.

The arms’ legal description calls for three volcanoes and a broad valley between two oceans, with a merchant ship in each ocean. The 1998 official-model decree explains that smoke identifies the mountains as volcanoes. The current statute does not assign three specific named volcanoes to those depicted forms.

The national arms formerly had five stars. Two were added in 1964, producing the seven-star representation of the provinces used today. A dated historical image can therefore correctly show five stars. It should not be used as a current model, and the change did not alter the stripe order.

The 1998 decree adopted an official model of the national arms and described its colors and smoking volcanoes. It addressed consistency in the emblem’s representation. The blue–white–red–white–blue stripe arrangement was not newly adopted that year; its history goes back to the national-symbols decree of September 1848.

The formally named observance is National Pavilion Day, Día del Pabellón Nacional, on November 12. It commemorates the first ceremonial raising in 1848. Law 768 established the day in 1949, and Article 17 of the current law continues it with special honors and permissions for displaying the pavilion.

Article 14 restricts routine use of the national pavilion to specified institutions and offices. Article 17 provides an express exception on November 12, when private individuals may raise it respectfully. A claim that private people may never display the pavilion overlooks this specific National Pavilion Day permission.

Article 4 expressly allows a citizen to keep the national flag raised permanently as a patriotic gesture, provided it is in an appropriate place and receives the required legal and respectful treatment. This permission concerns the plain flag and should not be confused with the pavilion’s narrower display rules.

Article 16 sets a 6 a.m. raising time and a 6 p.m. lowering time for the national pavilion. That provision belongs to the pavilion chapter. The plain national flag has separate rules, including the Article 4 permission for citizens to maintain a respectful permanent display in an appropriate setting.

The law defines the right from the position of someone standing with their back to the display. In a typical arrangement facing an audience, this is the audience’s left. Odd and even groups have additional placement rules, while displays with foreign national flags follow the separate international-practice provision.

No. Article 2 says the flag’s fabric should preferably be silk. It does not make silk the only permissible material in that provision. The law still requires the correct proportions and respectful condition, and Article 20 prohibits flying torn, faded, incomplete, or otherwise disrespectfully maintained flags and pavilions.

September 15 marks the independence anniversary dating to 1821. November 12 is National Pavilion Day and recalls the first ceremonial raising of the 1848 design. September 29 is the design’s adoption date. Keeping these events separate avoids giving the current flag an incorrect independence-era adoption date.

Check the broad center stripe and the outer edges. Costa Rica has a red center and blue outer stripes; Thailand has a blue center and red outer stripes. Both use the 1:1:2:1:1 stripe-height pattern. Costa Rica’s width:height ratio is 5:3, while Thailand’s is 3:2.

The 2024 state ceremonial decree provides for half-mast display during officially declared mourning. An executive decree establishes the observance, and the outside pavilion and, where applicable, the outside national flag are lowered. The duration depends on the category in Article 53 and the specific dates in the declaration.

The 2024 decree specifies eight days for a serving Costa Rican president, three for the listed former presidents or institutional heads, and three for a foreign head of state or government. A pope’s death has a four-day exception. Other discretionary cases may last up to three days, under an executive declaration.

Article 44 of the state ceremonial decree provides for covering the coffin with the national pavilion during a state funeral. For a cremation urn, the pavilion is displayed on a pedestal. It is then handed to the family. These provisions belong to the state funeral framework, not every private funeral.

Yes. The gallery links to actual flag drawings, construction diagrams, an arms detail, a comparison, a legal-document image, and three documentary photographs. Captions distinguish diagrams from historical evidence. The photographs retain their stated licenses, and the credit file records their creators, sources, permitted use, and any required attribution.