---
title: "Flag of India: colours and meaning"
description: "What every colour and symbol on the India flag stands for, its official 2:3 ratio, and the year the current design was adopted. Plus the flags it gets mistaken for."
url: https://atoneplace.net/flag/india/
site: "At One Place"
---

# The flag of India

**The flag of India: Three equal horizontal bands of saffron, white and green, with a navy blue 24-spoke wheel centred on the white band.**

Ratio 2:3 · current design adopted 1947

*[Flag drawn on the page: India]*

The Constituent Assembly adopted the flag on 22 July 1947, three weeks before independence, replacing the Congress spinning wheel with Ashoka's chakra so the flag would belong to the state rather than a party. The Flag Code of India required the cloth to be hand-spun and hand-woven khadi until 2021, when machine-made polyester was permitted — a change that remains contentious among khadi weavers in Karnataka, who held the sole manufacturing licence. Vice-President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan explained the chakra as motion: "India should no longer resist change, it must move and go forward." Until a 2002 court case brought by Naveen Jindal, private citizens could not fly the flag on ordinary days at all.

## Flags it gets confused with

*[Flag drawn on the page: India, Ireland]*

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

| Flag | How to tell them apart |
| --- | --- |
| Niger | Niger is orange, white and green with a plain orange disc, not a blue wheel, and its bands are separated by proportions closer to square at 6:7. |
| Ireland | Ireland is vertical, has no wheel, and its green sits at the hoist with orange at the fly. |

## 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.*

- **Saffron** (#FF9933) — Courage and sacrifice
- **White** (#FFFFFF) — Peace and truth
- **Green** (#138808) — Faith, fertility and the land
- **Blue** (#000080) — The colour of the Ashoka Chakra, for the sky and the ocean

## The symbols on it

| What | What it stands for |
| --- | --- |
| Ashoka Chakra | The wheel of dharma from the Lion Capital of Ashoka, at Sarnath; its 24 spokes stand for ceaseless motion |

- **Ratio:** 2:3
- **Current design adopted:** 1947
- **Colours:** saffron, white, green, blue

## Common questions

### What does the flag of India look like?

Three equal horizontal bands of saffron, white and green, with a navy blue 24-spoke wheel centred on the white band.

### What do the colours of the India flag mean?

Saffron: courage and sacrifice. White: peace and truth. Green: faith, fertility and the land. Blue: the colour of the Ashoka Chakra, for the sky and the ocean.

### How do you tell the India flag from the Niger one?

Niger is orange, white and green with a plain orange disc, not a blue wheel, and its bands are separated by proportions closer to square at 6:7.

### When was the India flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1947, and its official ratio is 2:3.

## Related pages

- [India](https://atoneplace.net/country/india/)
- [The flag of Ireland](https://atoneplace.net/flag/ireland/)
- [Every flag with saffron in it](https://atoneplace.net/flag/colour/saffron/)

## Sources

- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place (/about/)