The rising sun on Malawi’s national flag is red.
The sun appears on the upper black stripe, with 31 rays spreading upward. The black stripe represents the people of Africa, the red stripe symbolizes the blood shed in the struggle for African freedom, and the green stripe represents Malawi’s natural resources and vegetation.
The flag was adopted on July 6, 1964, when Malawi became independent from the United Kingdom. Its original design placed the rising red sun on the black band, emphasizing the dawn of freedom for the African continent.
Malawi briefly used a modified flag from 2010 to 2012, in which the sun was white and placed on the center stripe. The earlier design was restored after public and political opposition, so the current flag again shows a red rising sun on black.