What is on Mauritania’s flag?
A gold crescent and star appear on a green field, with a red horizontal band near the top and another near the bottom.
Flag of Mauritania
Mauritania’s flag has a green field, a gold crescent and star, and red horizontal bands near its upper and lower edges. The design was revised in 2017.
Current flag
Flag emoji 🇲🇷
Mauritania
Flag facts
Information about the flag’s design, colours and proportions.
- Proportion
- 2:3 height: width
Flag design
The flag has 3 horizontal bands from top to bottom: red · green · red.
- Layout
- Horizontal bands
- Number of bands
- 3
- Details
- Unequal-width bands
- Symbols
- Crescent – Centre and Star – Centre
- Colours
- Red, green, and yellow
Sources
A green field framed by red bands
Article 8 of Mauritania’s Constitution describes the national emblem as a green flag bearing a gold crescent and star, with a red horizontal band on each side. In the official specimen, the red bands run along the top and bottom, framing the green central field.
The government’s 2017 graphic guide sets the flag’s proportions at 2:3. Each red band is one-fifth of the short side; the crescent’s convex side faces down, and the five-pointed star is level with the crescent’s tips.
The red bands were added in 2017
Following the 2017 constitutional referendum, Referendum Constitutional Law No. 2017-021, promulgated on 15 August, amended Article 8 and added two red bands to the green flag.
Article 8 says the official specimen is to be approved by law. Decree No. 467-2017, dated 25 October 2017, later set out the flag’s detailed construction.
What the official sources say about the colours
Article 8 specifies the green field, gold crescent and star, and red bands, but it does not assign an individual symbolic meaning to each colour. Explanations of the colours should therefore be attributed to the person or institution offering them rather than presented as wording from the Constitution.
In a 2017 report, the Mauritanian Information Agency attributed to the President an explanation that the bands honour martyrs of the national resistance and soldiers who died defending the country, its independence and its territorial integrity. This is a reported presidential interpretation; Article 8 defines the design, not that meaning.
Frequently asked questions
When were the red bands added to Mauritania’s flag?
They entered the constitutional description in the 2017 revision of Article 8, promulgated on 15 August 2017.
What do the red bands mean?
The Constitution does not assign them a meaning. In 2017, the Information Agency reported the President’s explanation that the bands honour resistance martyrs and soldiers who died defending Mauritania.
Does the Constitution explain the crescent, star and colours?
It specifies their colours and placement but does not state individual symbolic meanings for them.
Sources
Country facts
- Type
- Country
- Name
- Mauritania
- Continent
- Africa
- Capital
- Nouakchott
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
- MR
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-3
- MRT
- ISO 3166-1 numeric
- 478
- Top-level domain
- .mr
- Area
- 1,030,700 km²
- Population
- 5,315,065 (2025)
- Currency
- MRO
- Calling code
- +222
Flags with a similar layout
These flags come from the same region and share one or more design characteristics.
Historical flags: Mauritania (1900–)
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.
