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Flags of Guinea-Bissau

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Flags of Guinea-Bissau

From the western reach of the Mandinka Kingdom of Kaabu — a successor and one-time vassal of the Mali Empire that dominated this coast for over six centuries — through nearly five hundred years of Portuguese colonial rule built on one of the earliest and most exploitative Atlantic slave-trade footholds in Africa, into Amílcar Cabral's guerrilla war for independence, and finally a sovereign republic flying Pan-African colors: five flags across roughly eight centuries.

This is a small country with an outsized role in African decolonization — the PAIGC's armed struggle from 1963 is one of the era's defining liberation wars, and Guinea-Bissau's 1973 declaration of independence, forced through before Portugal itself had thrown off dictatorship, helped trigger the 1974 Carnation Revolution that ended Portuguese colonialism everywhere at once.

Scope of this page: the lands of present-day Guinea-Bissau, c. 1230–present, five political entities. Kaabu's inland Mandinka rule and Portugal's coastal trading-post presence genuinely overlapped for centuries — Portuguese ships were trading (and taking captives) along this coast from the 1440s while Kaabu still governed the interior. This page follows the convention used elsewhere in the atlas: each entry covers the entity whose flag and rule are the clearest continuous thread for the territory during that span, with Kaabu's fall to Fula forces in 1867 marked as the hinge point where Portugal's presence hardens from coastal trading posts into an inland colonial claim. Part of a larger atlas — see the linked pages at the bottom.

Towns and liberated zones, 1963–1974

Guinea-Bissau's own real border, split into the two pieces the independence war actually produced: the coastal towns Portugal kept holding, and the rural interior the PAIGC governed outright as its own "liberated zones." Press play, or drag the slider.

The PAIGC ran schools, clinics, and courts before it ran a country. By the mid-1960s it controlled large stretches of the interior in fact, not just in name, even while Portugal still held Bissau and the other towns. The line below is a schematic stand-in for a guerrilla war's genuinely patchy front lines — it solidifies only for the years the two sides truly governed separate populations, and dissolves for good after the 1974 Carnation Revolution.
1963
SENEGAL GUINEA GUINEA COASTAL TOWNS INTERIOR
PAIGC turns to armed struggle

Schematic internal partition on a real traced border — the towns/interior dividing line stands in for a guerrilla war's genuinely irregular front, not a surveyed frontier. The Bijagós Islands are omitted from this simplified coastline.

How we know this. 5 of 5 eras on this page carry an evidence panel (2 attested, 1 placeholder image, 2 not yet checked). Only the ones marked attested are confirmed by the sources named under them; where sources disagree or a claim could not be confirmed, the panel says so.
red hoist with black star, yellow over green — unchanged since independence
1973 – present

Republic of Guinea-Bissau

Republic, independentLuís CabralNo official state religion (secular)
Migration & conquest:Emigration: to Portugal & Senegal (1990s–)

Who & why: the PAIGC unilaterally declares independence on 24 September 1973, months after Amílcar Cabral's January 1973 assassination robs him of the moment he had spent a decade building toward. Portugal does not recognize it at first, but the April 1974 Carnation Revolution topples the Estado Novo dictatorship in Lisbon, and the new Portuguese government formally recognizes Guinea-Bissau's independence on 10 September 1974. Luís Cabral, Amílcar's half-brother, becomes the first president.

What it represents: the flag adopted at independence (Wikipedia gives 24 September 1973, Flags of the World the constitution of 23 September) is the PAIGC's party flag without the party initials that the party version carries beneath the star: Pan-African red, yellow and green with a black star on the red hoist band, taken from the flags of Ghana and Guinea-Conakry. Flags of the World describes the short-lived Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde connection through the PAIGC, which broke apart.

Not yet checked against sourceshow we know this

Wikipedia: the flag was adopted on 24 September 1973, the day of the proclamation of independence; it is almost identical to the flag of the PAIGC, which has the party initials under the star; the black star symbolises the party's leadership. FOTW: the National Assembly proclaimed independence and the first constitution on 23 September 1973, whose article 2 describes the flag; the party flag is the national flag with the party sigla beneath the star; the flag follows Ghana's pan-African colours with the black star.

Not established: The national flag is the PAIGC flag without the initials, not 'unchanged'. The independence date differs by a day (23 or 24 September 1973). FOTW calls the Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde link a short-lived confederacy that broke apart over conflicts between the two peoples; Wikipedia does not mention it.

Paint guide
Proportions1:2, officially adopted 24 September 1973.
LayoutRed vertical band (2/5) at the hoist with a black five-pointed star centered; yellow over green horizontal bands filling the fly.
Red#CE1126
Yellow#FCD116
Green#009739
Star, black#0D0D0D
the PAIGC's own war-era banner, flown over the liberated interior
1963 – 1973

PAIGC armed struggle (liberated zones)

Liberation movementAmílcar CabralNo official religion (secular liberation movement)

Who & why: the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), founded in 1956 by Amílcar Cabral, turns to armed struggle in January 1963 after peaceful organizing is met with colonial violence, most notoriously the August 1959 Pidjiguiti dockworkers' massacre. Fighting a genuinely effective guerrilla campaign, the PAIGC controls large stretches of the rural interior by the mid-1960s, running schools, clinics, and courts in what it calls the liberated zones even as Portugal still holds the towns. Cabral, the movement's strategist and voice abroad, is assassinated in Conakry on 20 January 1973, almost certainly on the orders of a rival within the party working with Portuguese intelligence.

What it represents: Wikipedia says the PAIGC adopted its flag in 1961, using the yellow, green and red Pan-African colours with the Black Star of Africa on a red bar at the hoist, and bearing the party's PAIGC initials unlike the national flag. The sources read do not describe a black hoist band with a red star, as stated earlier on this page, and do not mention the liberated zones or the flag's use there; the drawing is unverified.

Attestedhow we know this

Wikipedia (Flag of Guinea-Bissau): the PAIGC adopted its flag in 1961, with the Pan-African colours of Ghana and Guinea-Conakry and a Black Star on a red bar at the hoist, the party initials beneath. Wikipedia (Portuguese Guinea): the Liberated Zones appear as a successor state with the PAIGC flag. FOTW: the party flag is the national flag with the sigla below the star; a 1974 PAIGC book photographs the independence assembly at Madina do Boé 'in the bush' with many small flags and a large one, and a photograph from the independence war showing the flag with Cabral's image was reported.

Not established: Neither source dates the first use of the flag in the liberated areas to 1963 (Wikipedia gives 1961 for the adoption); the page's earlier black hoist band with a red star is contradicted by both. The liberated zones are named only in Wikipedia's infobox.

Paint guide
ProportionsNo fixed ratio during the war years; shown at 3:2.
LayoutBlack vertical band (2/5) at the hoist with a red five-pointed star centered; yellow over green horizontal bands filling the fly.
Black#0D0D0D
Yellow#FCD116
Green#009739
Star, red#CE1126
Portugal's Republic-era flag, flown over the colony after 1911
1911 – 1963

Portuguese Guinea (colony, Republic era)

ColonyManuel de ArriagaNo official state religion (Portugal's Catholic Church disestablished in 1911)
Migration & conquest:Emigration: forced contract labor to São Tomé

Who & why: Portugal's 1910 revolution replaces the monarchy with a republic and, in 1911, a new national flag that flies over every Portuguese possession including Guinea, formally organized as a separate colony (Guiné Portuguesa) since 1879. Portuguese control on the ground stays thin and heavily contested for decades — so-called “pacification” campaigns against Bijagós, Balanta, and other resisting peoples continue into the 1930s under the later Salazar dictatorship, which treats Guinea as a source of forced labor and cash-crop exports while investing almost nothing in schools or infrastructure, conditions that feed directly into the independence movement that follows.

What it represents: Portugal's green-and-red national flag, adopted in 1911 and still in use today, carries the armillary sphere and shield from the old royal arms into the new republican era; it is flown, not a distinct colonial design, across the whole Portuguese empire during this span. The sources read do not cover Portuguese flags of this period or any flag of Portuguese Guinea.

Attestedhow we know this

Wikipedia (Flag of Portugal): the green-and-red republican flag was decreed on 30 June 1911. Wikipedia (Portuguese Guinea): the colony's infobox shows the Portuguese flag for 1910-1974. FOTW (Portuguese colonies): the Portuguese government's position, held 'almost since the 40ies', was that colonies had no flags other than the national flag, apart from officials' and military flags; distinctive colonial flag proposals (1965-67) were never adopted.

Not established: FOTW's statement covers the 1940s to 1974; for 1911 to the 1940s no source read describes colonial flag practice. Wikipedia gives 1910 as the start of the republican flag in the infobox and 30 June 1911 for the decree. The page's end date of 1963 is the start of the PAIGC war, not a change of flag.

Paint guide
Proportions2:3, per Portugal's 1911 national flag law.
LayoutGreen (2/5, hoist) and red (3/5, fly) vertical bands, armillary sphere and shield centered on the boundary (simplified here as a ringed circle).
Green#046A38
Red#C0272D
Armillary sphere, gold#C9A13C
the Kingdom of Portugal's blue-and-white flag, flown 1867–1911
1867 – 1911

Portuguese Guinea (colony, Kingdom era)

ColonyLuís I of PortugalRoman Catholicism (Portugal's state religion)
Ruling house:House of Braganza

Who & why: Portuguese traders have worked this coast since Nuno Tristão's 1446 voyage, running one of the earliest and most exploitative Atlantic slave-trade operations in Africa from coastal posts like Cacheu and Bissau, but for centuries their real reach stops at the shoreline. That changes as Kaabu, the Mandinka kingdom that had governed the interior for over six centuries, is destroyed at the 1867 Battle of Kansala by an alliance of Fula forces from Fouta Djallon; the loss of Kaabu's counterweight opens the interior to a Portuguese colonial claim that hardens over the following decades, formalized as the separate colony of Guiné Portuguesa in 1879 and contested at the Berlin Conference of 1884–85.

What it represents: the blue-and-white flag of the Kingdom of Portugal with the royal arms is drawn. Wikipedia says Portugal's flag took its blue-and-white field in 1830 and was replaced by the republican flag in 1910-11, but also says Portuguese Guinea was a dependency of Cape Verde until 1879; no source read shows the blue-and-white flag over the colony, and the 1867 start is not supported.

Not yet checked against sourceshow we know this

Wikipedia (Flag of Portugal): Portugal's flag took a blue-and-white field in 1830 and the republic replaced it in 1910-11. Wikipedia (Portuguese Guinea): a dependency of Cape Verde until 1879, a colony of the Portuguese Empire from 1879, with the Portuguese flag in the infobox for 1910-1974 only.

Not established: No source read shows the blue-and-white flag over Portuguese Guinea, and the page's 1867 start is contradicted by Wikipedia's 1879 date for the colony (a separate colony from Cape Verde); FOTW has no page on the kingdom-era flag in the colony.

Paint guide
ProportionsNo fixed civil ratio recorded for this period; shown at 3:2.
LayoutBlue (1/3, hoist) and white (2/3, fly) vertical bands, royal arms centered on the boundary (simplified here as a ringed circle).
Blue#1E2F96
White#F4EFE1
Arms, gold#C9A13C
NO FLAG DOCUMENTED
placeholder field — no surviving territorial banner attributed to Kaabu
c. 1230 – 1867

Kingdom of Kaabu (western reach)

KingdomTiramakhan TraoréTraditional Mandinka animist beliefs
Migration & conquest:Emigration: Atlantic slave trade via Kaabu & the coast
Ruling house:Kaabu Empire (Nyancho Dynasty)House of Braganza

Who & why: Kaabu emerges around 1235 as a Mandinka province carved out by generals of Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire, and governs the western savanna and coastal hinterland that today straddles Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and Senegal. It rules for a time as a tributary of Mali, then, as Mali's own power fades through the 15th and 16th centuries, emerges as a fully independent kingdom by around 1537 under its own Mansa at the capital, Kansala. Kaabu remains the dominant power of this region for centuries, ruling a mixed Mandinka, Balanta, Papel, and Bijagós population, until an alliance of Fula forces from neighboring Fouta Djallon — driven partly by Kaabu's continued raiding for the slave trade that Fula Muslim reformers opposed — storms and destroys the capital at the November 1867 Battle of Kansala, ending Kaabu as a state.

What it represents: no securely documented territorial flag survives for Kaabu; like much of pre-colonial West Africa, political authority here was expressed through royal regalia, drums, and oral praise-titles rather than a fixed banner. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

Placeholder imagehow we know this

This page's own caption calls the image a placeholder: «placeholder field — no surviving territorial banner attributed to Kaabu».

Not established: Whether a flag, banner or standard existed in this period was not checked. The colour shown is not evidence of one.

Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.

Reading the tags

Kingdom — sovereign or tributary rule under its own crown
Colony — administered as a possession of a foreign power
Liberation movement — armed movement governing contested territory
Republic, independent — sovereign under its own elected government
Leader — the named ruler most associated with the era's start
State religion — the official/established faith, not the population's

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Compiled from Wikipedia, Flags of the World (fotw.info / crwflags.com), and Britannica. Colors are close historical approximations for painting reference; pre-19th-century swatches are informed reconstructions, not official specifications.