Ivory Coast

Ivory Coast
Adopted	December 3, 1959
Proportions	2:3

The flag of the Ivory Coast (also often called Côte d'Ivoire) consists of a horizontal tricolour of orange, white, and green. It resembles the flag of Ireland (The Irish flag being green, white, and orange).

Symbolism

The design of the flag of the Ivory Coast deliberately avoids using the Pan African colours because the government of the country at the time of attaining independence opposed integration with other African countries without retaining bonds with its former colonial power of France.

For that reason the flag uses more neutral colours for which various explanations circulate. One explanation is that orange stands for the northern savannah grasslands, white the country's rivers and green the coastal forests . This would mean that the symbolism is almost equal to the flag of Niger, with which the country formerly former the Sahel-Benin union, an organisation to retain bonds with France.

Another explanation is that the colours represent progress, hope and national unity. The white and green colours in the flags were the colours of the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire, the ruling party at the time of independence.

Nickname

• Reversed Ireland