Flag of Ivory Coast

The flag of Ivory Coast, officially Côte d’Ivoire, is a vertical tricolor of orange, white, and green. The three bands have equal widths, with orange beside the flagpole. Adopted on December 3, 1959, it uses a 2:3 height-to-width ratio and has no central emblem.

Ivory Coast and Côte d’Ivoire refer to the same country and the same national flag. Côte d’Ivoire is the French name used officially, while Ivory Coast is its familiar English translation. A flag labeled “Côte d’Ivoire,” “Ivory Coast,” or “Ivorian flag” should show the same orange-white-green design.

Three uninterrupted vertical bands identify the Ivorian flag. Each occupies one-third of the total width and extends through the full height. Orange touches the hoist, white separates the two colored panels, and green reaches the fly. The plain national design contains no star, circle, lettering, or elephant.

The Ivory Coast flag uses orange, white, and green. The digital artwork on this page uses orange #FF8200, white #FFFFFF, and green #009A44. These values identify the supplied images; they should not be mistaken for a universal legal specification for every textile, printing process, or government identity system.

Official Ivorian civic explanations connect orange with the country’s rich land and struggle for emancipation, white with peace grounded in justice, and green with confidence in a better future. Together, the colors express national identity and aspirations. Their meaning comes from Ivorian history, rather than from another country’s similar tricolor.

Landscape explanations link orange with savanna land and green with forest and nature. Ivorian diplomatic materials use these associations alongside peace, unity, and a better future. They help explain the colors, but the flag is not a geographical map: its three equal panels do not mark borders or allocate regions.

Both expressions can describe the same rectangle when their order is stated. The flag is 2:3 in height-to-width notation, or 3:2 in width-to-height notation. A correct image is therefore one and a half times as wide as it is tall, with three equal vertical panels inside that rectangle.

Start with a rectangle three units wide and two units high. Divide its width into three equal parts, then fill them orange, white, and green from left to right. Keep every panel full height. The diagram’s labels, measurement lines, and outer framing explain the construction and are not part of the flag.

Any size can preserve the illustrated flag’s shape if width remains one and a half times height and each stripe stays one-third of the width. The examples below are calculated dimensions for artwork and practical planning. They are not presented as an official Ivorian catalog of approved flag sizes.

The Ivorian national flag was adopted on December 3, 1959, under Law No. 59-240, before independence from France on August 7, 1960. The orange-white-green tricolor continued as the independent country’s flag. Adoption and independence are separate milestones, so 1960 should not replace 1959 as the design’s adoption year.

A territory can adopt national symbols while preparing for independence. Ivory Coast’s flag was established in December 1959, during that transition, and was already available when independence was proclaimed the following August. The two dates describe different events: choosing the national emblem and becoming an independent sovereign state.

Pierre Achille is credited with design work in a family-published transcript of his 1984 recollection. That account describes collaboration with Ivorian political leaders. It should be identified as a historical testimony, while the formal adoption of the national emblem is separately documented by the December 3, 1959 law.

Article 48 of Côte d’Ivoire’s 2016 Constitution identifies the national emblem as an orange, white, and green tricolor with equal vertical bands. This describes the design’s essential arrangement. The article should not be treated as a source for every digital color code, printing specification, or detailed ceremonial procedure.

Ivory Coast places orange at the hoist, followed by white and green. Ireland places green at the hoist, followed by white and orange. Their proportions also differ: Ivory Coast is 2:3 in height-to-width notation, while Ireland is 1:2. Reversing the colors alone does not reproduce both flags accurately.

Ivory Coast uses vertical orange-white-green bands with no central symbol. Niger uses horizontal orange-white-green bands and an orange disk in the center. India uses horizontal saffron-white-green bands with a navy blue Ashoka Chakra. Band direction and central symbols distinguish these flags even when their broad color families appear similar.

Orange is the hoist color, beside the flagpole or attachment edge. In the usual front-view illustration with the pole on the left, orange appears on the left and green on the right. The reverse side of a real cloth flag can show the opposite visual order without being a different flag.

A portrait banner and a horizontal national flag are different display arrangements. For an ordinary reference picture, retain the standard orange-left, white-center, green-right rectangle. When an institution needs a hanging banner or ceremonial installation, confirm its required orientation and finishing with the organizer before rotating or manufacturing the artwork.

August 7 is Ivory Coast’s Independence Day, commemorating independence in 1960, and is a major occasion for national ceremonies and flag display. December 3 marks the flag’s 1959 adoption. These anniversaries have different meanings; the adoption date alone does not establish a separate official annual holiday called Flag Day.

Salut aux couleurs is a ceremony honoring the national flag, commonly involving its raising and the national anthem, L’Abidjanaise. Ivorian institutions use such ceremonies to express civic commitment. The Public Service Ministry has documented a first-Monday-of-the-month practice, but an institution’s schedule should not be assumed to govern every private household.

Official half-mast display follows a mourning instruction issued for a particular occasion. After former president Henri Konan Bédié’s death, a 2023 presidential communiqué ordered state flags lowered during ten days of national mourning, including at embassies abroad. That historical order illustrates the practice; it is not a continuing instruction today.

The plain national flag has no elephant, shield, text, or other emblem in its white band. Côte d’Ivoire’s coat of arms is a separate national symbol that includes an elephant’s head. Seeing the arms on an official object does not mean they belong on every reproduction of the national flag.

Use the SVG for artwork that must scale cleanly, or a sufficiently large PNG for a fixed-size layout. Preserve the 3:2 width-to-height ratio, equal band widths, and opaque white center. Agree on the printer’s color settings and finished dimensions, then inspect a proof before producing a larger batch.

Inspect the cloth, seams, and attachment points regularly, especially after wind or rain. Follow the manufacturer’s cleaning guidance, dry the flag before storing it, and replace badly faded or torn material. These are practical care suggestions; they do not establish a special mandatory Ivorian folding ritual or disposal procedure.

The Ivory Coast flag emoji is 🇨🇮. It is encoded using the regional indicator symbols for C and I: U+1F1E8 and U+1F1EE. Different devices may draw the flag differently or show letters instead. The emoji identifies Côte d’Ivoire and should not be confused with Ireland’s 🇮🇪 sequence.

Common mistakes include putting green at the hoist, stretching the flag to Ireland’s proportions, arranging the bands horizontally, adding an elephant, or making the center transparent. Another frequent error is using independence in 1960 as the adoption date. Check color order, equal widths, overall shape, and historical dates separately.

The downloads include a plain SVG flag, an 1800-by-1200-pixel PNG, and original diagrams explaining construction, colors, symbolism, orientation, history, sizes, and the comparison with Ireland. The plain flag files contain no labels. Diagrams are educational illustrations, with captions that distinguish their added explanatory elements from the national design.

Yes. Each band is one-third of the flag’s width and runs through its full height. On an image 1800 pixels wide and 1200 pixels high, each panel is 600 pixels wide. The equal division applies to the finished visible design, not to extra fabric used for hems or fittings.

No. White is one of the three colors of the national flag and should remain visible on any background. The supplied SVG includes a white rectangle, and the PNG has an opaque white center. Removing that panel would allow another background color to show through and change the flag’s appearance.

Yes. The reverse of an Ivorian cloth flag can appear green-white-orange, especially in a photograph where the pole is on the right. Identify the attachment edge and the rectangle’s proportions before naming it. Orange remains the Ivorian hoist color, while the Irish flag has green at its hoist.

No. The plain SVG and PNG reproduce only the three equal orange, white, and green bands. They do not include an elephant, shield, inscription, or watermark. The separate explanatory diagrams add labels and measurements around their illustrations so readers can understand the design without changing the plain flag master.