Flag of Botswana
The flag has 5 horizontal bands from top to bottom: blue · white · black · white · blue.
Current flag
Flag emoji 🇧🇼
Botswana
Flag facts
- Adopted
- 1966
Flag design
The flag has 5 horizontal bands from top to bottom: blue · white · black · white · blue.
- Layout
- Horizontal bands
- Number of bands
- 5
- Details
- Unequal-width bands and Fimbriated element
- Colours
- Blue, white, and black
Sources
Rain, harmony and the zebra colours on Botswana’s flag
Botswana’s flag has a light-blue field crossed by a black horizontal band edged in white. The government explains blue through water and rain, especially valuable in a dry country; black and white represent harmony among people of different backgrounds.
The black-and-white band also recalls the zebra, which appears in Botswana’s national arms. The flag was adopted at independence in 1966, and its restrained design differs from many African flags that use a Pan-African tricolour.
Country facts
- Type
- Country
- Name
- Botswana
- Continent
- Africa
- Capital
- Gaborone
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
- BW
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-3
- BWA
- ISO 3166-1 numeric
- 072
- Top-level domain
- .bw
- Area
- 600,370 km²
- Population
- 2,562,122 (2025)
- Currency
- BWP
- Calling code
- +267
Flags with a similar layout
These flags come from the same region and share one or more design characteristics.
Historical flags: Botswana (1885–)
Images are ordered by the years listed in the collection. A listed year may not be the flag’s official adoption year.
About historical flags
Vexilla's historical flag collection includes former flags associated with present-day countries and territories, as well as flags of states, empires, and other authorities that historically governed them.
A flag's inclusion in a country's historical collection does not necessarily mean that the country was independent at the time or that the flag was its own national flag.
The years shown are based on historical records in the dataset and do not always indicate the date of official adoption. The collection is not exhaustive, and historical usage, territorial coverage, and interpretations may vary.
