Five interlocking rings appear on the Olympic flag.
The rings symbolize the Olympic movement and are arranged in two rows: three rings above and two below. Their colors are blue, yellow, black, green and red, set against a white background. The symbol was designed by Pierre de Coubertin and first appeared publicly in 1913.
The rings are often described as representing the union of the five parts of the world involved in the Olympic movement. The colors were selected because, at the time, every national flag included at least one of the six colors used in the emblem when white is included.
A common mistake is to treat the rings as a direct color code for five specific continents. The official explanation emphasizes the international nature of the movement rather than assigning one ring to one continent. The flag first appeared at an Olympic Games in Antwerp in 1920.