What do the colours of the Ghana flag mean?

Red: the blood of those who died for independence. Gold: the country's mineral wealth — it was the Gold Coast. Green: forests and natural wealth.

How do you tell the Ghana flag from the Bolivia one?

Bolivia is red-yellow-green in the same order but has no star.

When was the Ghana flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1957, and its official ratio is 2:3.

The flag of Ghana

Three equal horizontal bands of red, gold and green, with a black five-pointed star centred on the gold.

Ratio 2:3 · current design adopted 1957

Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence, in 1957, and its flag became the template: red, gold and green with a black star spread across the continent as the emblem of decolonisation. The black star comes from the Black Star Line, the shipping company Marcus Garvey founded in 1919 to link the African diaspora, and it gives the national football team its name. The flag was designed by Theodosia Okoh, a teacher and artist, and briefly had a white central stripe between 1964 and 1966. Ethiopia's green-gold-red is a separate and older tradition that the same colours also draw on.

Flags it gets confused with

Flag	How to tell them apart
Bolivia	Bolivia is red-yellow-green in the same order but has no star.
Guinea and Mali	Both use vertical bands of the same colours.

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
Black star	African emancipation; taken from Marcus Garvey's Black Star Line shipping company

Ratio: 2:3
Current design adopted: 1957
Colours: red, gold, green

Common questions

What does the flag of Ghana look like?: Three equal horizontal bands of red, gold and green, with a black five-pointed star centred on the gold.
What do the colours of the Ghana flag mean?: Red: the blood of those who died for independence. Gold: the country's mineral wealth — it was the Gold Coast. Green: forests and natural wealth.
How do you tell the Ghana flag from the Bolivia one?: Bolivia is red-yellow-green in the same order but has no star.
When was the Ghana flag adopted?: The current design dates from 1957, and its official ratio is 2:3.

Ghana Capital, area, population and currency
The flag of Bolivia Routinely mistaken for this one
Every flag with red in it
The flag of United States Ratio 10:19
The flag of United Kingdom Ratio 1:2
The flag of Canada Ratio 1:2
The flag of France Ratio 2:3
The flag of China Ratio 2:3
The flag of Germany Ratio 3:5
The flag of Russia Ratio 2:3
The flag of Italy Ratio 2:3

Sources

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

How these figures are compiled and checked