What do the colours of the Venezuela flag mean?

Yellow: the wealth of the land. Blue: the sea separating Venezuela from Spain. Red: the blood and courage of independence.

How do you tell the Venezuela flag from the Colombia one?

Colombia's yellow band fills the top half and there are no stars.

When was the Venezuela flag adopted?

The current design dates from 2006, and its official ratio is 2:3.

The flag of Venezuela

Three equal horizontal bands of yellow, blue and red, with an arc of eight white five-pointed stars on the blue.

Ratio 2:3 · current design adopted 2006

The eighth star was added in 2006 to fulfil a decree Simón Bolívar signed in 1817 and which had never been implemented. Venezuela's bands are equal, unlike Colombia's and Ecuador's, and the star arc is the distinguishing feature at any distance. The state flag also carries the coat of arms in the upper hoist; the civil flag does not. The horse on that coat of arms was turned to gallop leftward in the same 2006 revision, a change that attracted more argument than the star.

Flags it gets confused with

Flag	How to tell them apart
Colombia	Colombia's yellow band fills the top half and there are no stars.
Ecuador	Ecuador also has a double-height yellow band, plus a coat of arms, and no stars.

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
Eight stars	The seven provinces that signed the 1811 declaration, plus Guayana, added in 2006

Ratio: 2:3
Current design adopted: 2006
Colours: yellow, blue, red

Common questions

What does the flag of Venezuela look like?: Three equal horizontal bands of yellow, blue and red, with an arc of eight white five-pointed stars on the blue.
What do the colours of the Venezuela flag mean?: Yellow: the wealth of the land. Blue: the sea separating Venezuela from Spain. Red: the blood and courage of independence.
How do you tell the Venezuela flag from the Colombia one?: Colombia's yellow band fills the top half and there are no stars.
When was the Venezuela flag adopted?: The current design dates from 2006, and its official ratio is 2:3.

Venezuela Capital, area, population and currency
The flag of Colombia Routinely mistaken for this one
The flag of Ecuador Routinely mistaken for this one
Every flag with yellow in it
The flag of China Ratio 2:3
The flag of Brazil Ratio 7:10
The flag of Spain Ratio 2:3
The flag of Ukraine Ratio 2:3
The flag of Romania Ratio 2:3
The flag of Sweden Ratio 5:8
The flag of Vietnam Ratio 2:3
The flag of Belgium Ratio 13:15

Sources

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

How these figures are compiled and checked