Flags of Senegal

Republic of Senegal (independent)

Who & why: Senegal withdraws from the Mali Federation on 20 August 1960 after weeks of escalating conflict between Senegalese leaders and Sudanese Federal Prime Minister Modibo Keïta over how much power the federal government in Dakar should hold; Senegalese Prime Minister Mamadou Dia and President-to-be Léopold Sédar Senghor move to seal the union's end and declare full independence the same day. Senghor, already internationally known as a poet and a founder of the Négritude literary movement, is elected Senegal's first president the following month.

What it represents: a green-yellow-red vertical tricolor — the Pan-African colors, drawn ultimately from Ethiopia's flag and shared with many newly independent African states — distinguished from its neighbors by a small central green five-pointed star on the yellow band. Green stands for hope and agriculture, yellow for wealth and labor, red for sacrifice and independence; the design, credited in large part to Senghor himself, was fixed by law on the day of independence.

Mali Federation (Senegal & French Sudan)

Who & why: Senegal and French Sudan join as the Mali Federation on 4 April 1959, an attempt by Senghor and Sudanese leader Modibo Keïta to build a single, larger state out of two territories that both doubted they could sustain full independence alone as the French Community loosened. The Federation gains internationally recognized independence from France on 20 June 1960 while still joined — but a dispute over whether power should sit with a strong federal presidency or with each territory's own government fractures the union within weeks. Senegal secedes on 20 August 1960; French Sudan renames itself the Republic of Mali on 22 September 1960.

What it represents: a green-yellow-red vertical tricolor carrying a black Kanaga figure — a stylized human/mask sign drawn from Bambara and Dogon symbolism — centered on the yellow band. After the split, Senegal kept the tricolor but swapped the figure for its own green star; the newly renamed Mali briefly kept the figure on its own flag before dropping it too, leaving the plain tricolor still flown by Mali today.

French colonial Senegal (Saint-Louis, then French West Africa)

Who & why: France establishes a permanent trading post at Saint-Louis in 1659, one of its first lasting footholds in Africa, built initially on the gum arabic and slave trades. French control pushes inland through the 19th century, especially under Governor Louis Faidherbe (1854–1865), who founds the port of Dakar in 1857 and extends French authority up the Senegal River. Senegal becomes the administrative and commercial center of French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française, AOF) when that federation is formally organized in 1895, with Dakar named its federal capital in 1902 — the seat from which France governs eight territories reaching to Niger. Senegal's Four Communes (Saint-Louis, Gorée, Rufisque, and Dakar) hold an unusual status among French African colonies, with residents granted French citizenship and the right to elect a deputy to the French National Assembly as early as 1848. Colonial rule loosens after the Second World War; Senegal becomes an autonomous republic within the French Community on 25 November 1958 before joining the Mali Federation the following spring.

What it represents: the French tricolor flies over Saint-Louis, Dakar, and every other French holding in the territory throughout this span; Senegal has no distinct flag of its own under French rule.

Fragmented Wolof and Serer kingdoms

Who & why: the Jolof Empire's overlordship collapses after its army's defeat at the Battle of Danki around 1549, when the vassal kingdom of Cayor breaks away under Amary Ngoné Sobel Fall; the other Wolof states — Waalo, Baol, and a much-reduced rump Jolof — follow into full independence rather than remain tributary. To the south, the Serer kingdoms of Sine and Saloum, never fully drawn into Jolof's orbit, continue their own separate royal lines throughout this period. No single power reunifies the region; Portuguese traders, followed by Dutch and French rivals, appear along the coast from the 15th century onward but hold only scattered posts, not territory.

What it represents: no securely documented flag survives for any of these successor kingdoms; each ruled under its own royal regalia, drums, and court symbols rather than a fixed woven banner in the European sense. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

Jolof Empire

Who & why: according to Wolof oral tradition, Ndiadiane Ndiaye unites the Wolof-speaking peoples of the Senegal River valley into the Jolof Empire around the mid-14th century, founding a confederation that comes to hold loose overlordship over the later kingdoms of Cayor, Baol, and Waalo, collecting tribute while leaving local rulers — the damel, teigne, and brak — considerable day-to-day autonomy. The empire's reach and cohesion vary considerably across its two centuries and it never develops a centralized bureaucracy comparable to contemporary states elsewhere; it is best understood as a shifting overlordship rather than a single unitary kingdom.

What it represents: no securely documented flag survives from this pre-colonial, pre-contact era; Senegambian polities of the period used royal regalia, drums, and praise-symbols rather than fixed woven banners, and none can be attributed to the Jolof court with confidence. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

Kingdom of Takrur (Tekrur)

Who & why: Takrur is the earliest polity in the Senegal River valley documented by name in outside sources, appearing in the 11th-century writings of the Arab geographer al-Bakri and later al-Idrisi as an established kingdom already engaged in trans-Saharan trade. Its king, War Jabi ibn Rabis, converts to Islam around the 1030s–40s — among the earliest royal conversions anywhere in sub-Saharan West Africa — and Takrur becomes a base from which Almoravid Berber forces recruit allies for their own 11th-century campaigns. Long a trading rival and sometime tributary neighbor of the larger Ghana Empire to its east, Takrur persists as a distinct kingdom in the Futa Toro region for roughly five centuries before being eclipsed by the rise of the Jolof Empire further south around 1350; its name outlives its independence, later used broadly by Arabic writers as a byword for West Africa's Islamized Sahel.

What it represents: no flag or banner survives or was likely recorded for Takrur in any modern sense; what is known of the kingdom comes almost entirely from outside Arabic-language accounts rather than surviving local regalia. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

World context: Takrur's Islamic conversion under War Jabi runs alongside the height of the Ghana Empire's own trans-Saharan gold trade, the Fatimid Caliphate's rule from Cairo, and the Song dynasty's economic flourishing in China; its final two centuries overlap the Christian Crusades in the Levant (from 1096) and the construction of Cambodia's Angkor Wat (early 12th century), before Takrur's own eclipse coincides roughly with the rise of Mali under Sundiata Keita.