Flag of Honduras

The flag of Honduras has three equal horizontal bands: blue at the top and bottom, with white between them. Five blue, five-pointed stars occupy the middle band. Four form the corners of an imaginary rectangle, and the fifth sits in its center. The usual national design has no coat of arms.

Each horizontal band occupies one-third of the flag’s height. The five stars lie entirely within the central white band and match the outer bands in color. Their arrangement has two stars above, one at the center, and two below, with an upright point at the top of every star.

The dark-blue download uses #0D3B99, while the turquoise version uses #00BCE4. Both use white #FFFFFF, and each version matches its stars to its blue bands. These are the actual digital values of the supplied reference artwork, not authenticated statutory HEX codes, Pantone numbers, textile dyes, or printing specifications.

Official educational explanations associate the blue with the sky and the seas bordering Central America, and the white with peace and purity. The five stars recall the five states of the former Central American federation and an ideal of regional unity. These interpretations explain the design rather than prescribing numerical colors.

The five stars represent Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, the five states associated with the former Central American federation. They express the memory and ideal of regional unity. They do not represent five Honduran departments, and neither Belize nor Panama belongs to this particular five-country group.

Honduras’s flag is twice as wide as it is high: a 2:1 width-to-height ratio. Sources that give height before width write the same proportion as 1:2. The three bands have equal heights, so each occupies one-third of the total height, regardless of the flag’s finished physical size.

Start with a rectangle twice as wide as it is high, divide it into three equal horizontal bands, and color the outer bands blue. Place five matching upright stars in the white band. Use four corner positions and one central position, scaling the complete reference uniformly rather than guessing each star separately.

Any calculated finished-field size that preserves the 2:1 ratio keeps the basic proportions: examples include 120 by 60, 150 by 75, and 200 by 100 centimeters. Each band is one-third of the height. These examples are mathematical sizes, not a verified government schedule of mandatory commercial flag dimensions.

Honduras inherited the blue-white-blue tradition of the Central American federation. Its five-star national design is associated with an 1866 decree, followed by a major descriptive reform in 1949. Later regulations and institutional practice help explain differing blue shades. Flag Day, constitutional recognition, and recent color proposals are separate milestones.

Honduras belonged to the Central American federation whose blue-white-blue tradition influenced several later national flags. The five stars preserve a reference to the former federal states even after the union broke apart. Similar colors therefore connect regional histories, while the stars distinguish Honduras from neighboring flags that display coats of arms.

Honduran public institutions identify Decree No. 7 of February 16, 1866 as the creation of the national five-star flag, during José María Medina’s presidency. That date concerns the national design, not independence from Spain. The flag’s later description and proportions were revised through Decree No. 29 in January 1949.

The documented creation is a legislative act associated with the government of José María Medina in 1866. That political attribution does not establish that Medina personally drew every element. The sources reviewed do not securely identify one individual designer of the complete present arrangement; modern vector artists created reproductions of an existing symbol.

Decree No. 29 of January 18, 1949 revised the earlier flag description. The reform is associated with the equal horizontal bands, turquoise-blue wording, five-star arrangement, and the familiar 1:2 height-to-width proportion. It was a revision of an existing national symbol, rather than the first appearance of a five-star Honduran flag.

The color record includes different descriptions and practices. The 1949 text uses azul turquesa, while a regulation dated September 3, 1970 interprets the blue as dark blue, or turquí. Turquoise renditions also appear in recent official use. These differences cannot be resolved simply by treating one website’s HEX value as law.

On September 24, 2026, Congress reported a proposal by José Jaar to replace the color wording with azul turquí while retaining the three equal bands and five stars. The report described what would happen if the reform were approved. It therefore documents a proposal, not proof of an enacted color amendment.

The main historical records examined are Decree No. 7 of 1866, its 1949 reform through Decree No. 29, and a flag regulation dated September 3, 1970, published in La Gaceta in 1971. These records establish a legislative history; this article does not certify a fully consolidated statement of all current flag law.

Preserve the 2:1 finished-field ratio, equal bands, five upright stars, and a consistent blue across the bands and stars. Use a suitable approved reference and proof the entire design before production. Materials, seams, sleeves, and color matching require separate decisions; a downloadable image alone does not certify compliance with every applicable production rule.

Position depends on the applicable ceremony and institution. UNAH’s published protocol gives the national flag the place of honor at the head table’s right, which is the audience’s left, and addresses groups of flags separately. This is a documented university convention; it should not be presented as a complete national ceremonial code.

Honduras observes National Flag Day on September 1. Official education materials associate the observance with Decree No. 84-95, and government institutions mark it with flag ceremonies at the opening of the civic month. This annual observance is separate from the 1866 design milestone and from Independence Day on September 15.

No. Flag Day is September 1, while Independence Day is September 15 and commemorates independence from Spain in 1821. The national five-star design came later, in 1866. Keeping those dates separate prevents an independence anniversary, an annual flag observance, and a flag-design decree from being mistaken for the same event.

A documented example followed the killings at the women’s prison PNFAS in June 2023. The official newspaper reported an instruction to state institutions to lower the national flag beginning June 22. That was a specific mourning measure, not a permanent annual rule or evidence that the same instruction remains active today.

Keep a displayed flag clean, secure, and in sound condition, following its material’s care instructions. Honduras’s Education Secretariat documented lowering, ceremonial burning, and raising a replacement flag on September 1, 2023. That event is evidence of an institutional practice; it does not by itself establish a compulsory procedure for every private owner.

The ordinary five-star design is horizontally symmetric, so a view from behind preserves the same visual arrangement while putting the hoist on the opposite side. Turning the flag upside down is different: the stars then point downward. Identical blue outer bands therefore do not make every possible orientation equally correct.

Specialist flag references document a Honduran naval ensign with the coat of arms in the white band and five stars arranged in an arc below it. That distinct design should be labeled as a naval reference. It must not silently replace the familiar national flag whose center contains five stars without arms.

Honduras uses five separate stars in a white horizontal band. El Salvador’s state flag and Nicaragua’s national flag instead feature coats of arms within horizontal blue-white-blue designs. Guatemala uses vertical blue-white-blue bands with its arms in the state flag. Similar colors reflect regional connections, but their emblems and proportions differ.

The photographs show a Honduran flag beside the United States flag in Tegucigalpa on May 5, 2014, and a turquoise rendition at an IADC ceremony in Washington on August 5, 2026. They document particular events and physical flags. Lighting, folds, and institutional practice make them unsuitable as exact national color specifications.

The Honduras flag emoji is 🇭🇳. It is formed from the regional indicator symbols H and N, encoded as U+1F1ED and U+1F1F3. Devices may show different blue shades or simplified stars. An emoji is useful in text, but its platform-specific rendering is not a construction drawing or a manufacturing color standard.

Common errors include omitting a star, adding a sixth star, using unequal bands, rotating the stars downward, or stretching the rectangle away from its 2:1 ratio. Confusing the ordinary national flag with the arms-bearing naval reference also changes the design. Exact digital blues should be labeled as reference values rather than certified law.

The local gallery supplies dark-blue and turquoise SVG flags, an enlarged national PNG, construction and color diagrams, a naval reference, regional comparisons, and documented photographs. SVG files scale cleanly, while the PNG is convenient for ordinary image software. Captions identify reference measurements, historical examples, and the rights associated with each image.