National Flags

National Flags

The most common colour used on national flags is red. It appears on over seventy per cent of all national flags in some capacity. Coming in second is blue, followed by white. For a practical reason, these colours were used as they are the best, longest-lasting colours in the history of dyes. While flags share colours, they symbolise different things.

Red is often used to represent boldness or bravery. In some cases, red can also represent blood. This type of representation is usually common for countries that had to fight to gain independence. In the case of the Australian Aboriginal Flag, the red in the lower half stands for the earth and the colour of ochre, which has ceremonial significance.