Mauritius’s national flag has four equal horizontal bands. From top to bottom, they are red, blue, yellow, and green, giving the flag its nickname, “The Four Bands.”
The flag was adopted when Mauritius became independent on March 12, 1968. Its colours are commonly associated with the country’s history and identity: red with the struggle for freedom and independence, blue with the surrounding Indian Ocean, yellow with the light of independence, and green with the island’s agriculture and year-round vegetation.
The design was created by Gurudutt Moher, a retired schoolteacher. The flag was recorded at the College of Arms in London on January 9, 1968, shortly before independence. Each stripe has equal width, so the flag is not a tricolour with a narrow or enlarged central band.
The four-band national flag should also be distinguished from Mauritius’s civil, government, and naval ensigns. Those maritime flags add different fields or emblems, but they do not replace the basic four equal stripes of the national flag.