What do the colours of the Cameroon flag mean?

Green: the forests of the south, and hope. Red: unity — the central band. Yellow: the savannah of the north, and the sun.

How do you tell the Cameroon flag from the Senegal one?

Senegal's middle band is yellow with a green star; Cameroon's is red with a yellow star.

When was the Cameroon flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1975, and its official ratio is 2:3.

The flag of Cameroon

Three equal vertical bands of green, red and yellow, with a yellow five-pointed star centred on the red.

Ratio 2:3 · current design adopted 1975

The star is called the star of unity and marks the 1961 merger of British Southern Cameroons with the former French territory; from 1961 to 1975 there were two stars, in the green band, one for each part. Cameroon's band order — green, red, yellow — differs from Senegal's and Mali's green, yellow, red, which is the fastest way to distinguish it before looking for the star. The three flags are otherwise the same palette in the same format. The yellow star sits on red rather than yellow, so it is always visible.

Flags it gets confused with

Senegal

Field and colours only. Not shown: a green five-pointed star centred on the yellow band.

Mali

Drawn at each flag’s own official ratio, which is itself the difference in some of these pairs.

Flag	How to tell them apart
Senegal	Senegal's middle band is yellow with a green star; Cameroon's is red with a yellow star.
Mali	Mali has no star and its middle band is yellow.

What the colours mean

Flag laws usually specify a Pantone chip, a CMYK mix or just a colour name. Converting any of those to sRGB is lossy, which is why published hex values disagree.

The symbols on it

What	What it stands for
Star of unity	The union of the formerly French and British territories

Ratio: 2:3
Current design adopted: 1975
Colours: green, red, yellow

Common questions

What does the flag of Cameroon look like?: Three equal vertical bands of green, red and yellow, with a yellow five-pointed star centred on the red.
What do the colours of the Cameroon flag mean?: Green: the forests of the south, and hope. Red: unity — the central band. Yellow: the savannah of the north, and the sun.
How do you tell the Cameroon flag from the Senegal one?: Senegal's middle band is yellow with a green star; Cameroon's is red with a yellow star.
When was the Cameroon flag adopted?: The current design dates from 1975, and its official ratio is 2:3.

Cameroon Capital, area, population and currency
The flag of Senegal Routinely mistaken for this one
The flag of Mali Routinely mistaken for this one
Every flag with green in it
The flag of India Ratio 2:3
The flag of Brazil Ratio 7:10
The flag of Italy Ratio 2:3
The flag of Mexico Ratio 4:7
The flag of Ireland Ratio 1:2
The flag of South Africa Ratio 2:3
The flag of Jamaica Ratio 1:2
The flag of Pakistan Ratio 2:3

Sources

The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (Public domain (US Government))

How these figures are compiled and checked