---
title: "Flag of United Arab Emirates: colours and meaning"
description: "What every colour and symbol on the United Arab Emirates flag stands for, its official 1:2 ratio, and the year the current design was adopted."
url: https://atoneplace.net/flag/united-arab-emirates/
site: "At One Place"
---

# The flag of United Arab Emirates

**The flag of United Arab Emirates: A vertical red band at the hoist with three equal horizontal bands of green, white and black filling the rest.**

Ratio 1:2 · current design adopted 1971

These are the Pan-Arab colours of the 1916 Arab Revolt — black, white, green and red — which appear in some arrangement on the flags of Jordan, Palestine, Kuwait, Sudan and the UAE, and the arrangement is the only way to tell them apart. The UAE's is the plainest: a vertical red bar and three horizontal bands with no device at all. The design was chosen in 1971 from more than a thousand entries by Abdullah Mohammed Al Maainah, then nineteen years old, who later became a diplomat. It was raised on 2 December 1971, the day the federation formed.

## Flags it gets confused with

| Flag | How to tell them apart |
| --- | --- |
| Kuwait | Kuwait's hoist device is a black trapezoid, not a red vertical band, and its bands are green-white-red. |
| Jordan and Palestine | Both use a red triangle at the hoist rather than a rectangle. |

## 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.*

- **Red** (#FF0000) — Unity, and the hardiness of the people
- **Green** (#00732F) — Hope, joy and the fertility of the land
- **White** (#FFFFFF) — Peace and honesty
- **Black** (#000000) — The defeat of enemies, and the country's oil wealth

- **Ratio:** 1:2
- **Current design adopted:** 1971
- **Colours:** red, green, white, black

## Common questions

### What does the flag of United Arab Emirates look like?

A vertical red band at the hoist with three equal horizontal bands of green, white and black filling the rest.

### What do the colours of the United Arab Emirates flag mean?

Red: unity, and the hardiness of the people. Green: hope, joy and the fertility of the land. White: peace and honesty. Black: the defeat of enemies, and the country's oil wealth.

### How do you tell the United Arab Emirates flag from the Kuwait one?

Kuwait's hoist device is a black trapezoid, not a red vertical band, and its bands are green-white-red.

### When was the United Arab Emirates flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1971, and its official ratio is 1:2.

## Related pages

- [United Arab Emirates](https://atoneplace.net/country/united-arab-emirates/)
- [The flag of Kuwait](https://atoneplace.net/flag/kuwait/)
- [Every flag with red in it](https://atoneplace.net/flag/colour/red/)
- [The flag of United States](https://atoneplace.net/flag/united-states/)
- [The flag of United Kingdom](https://atoneplace.net/flag/united-kingdom/)
- [The flag of Canada](https://atoneplace.net/flag/canada/)
- [The flag of France](https://atoneplace.net/flag/france/)
- [The flag of China](https://atoneplace.net/flag/china/)
- [The flag of Germany](https://atoneplace.net/flag/germany/)
- [The flag of Russia](https://atoneplace.net/flag/russia/)
- [The flag of Italy](https://atoneplace.net/flag/italy/)

## Sources

- The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/) [Public domain (US Government)]