Who designed the tricolor that inspired Colombia's national flag?

Francisco de Miranda designed the tricolor that inspired Colombia’s national flag.

Miranda, a Venezuelan general and independence leader, developed the yellow-blue-red design associated first with the revolutionary cause in Spanish America. The flag was first raised during his 1806 expedition, including at Jacmel, Haiti, before later versions became associated with Venezuela and Gran Colombia.

The tricolor spread through the independence movements that reshaped northern South America. Gran Colombia adopted a related version, and after that republic dissolved, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela retained connected yellow-blue-red traditions with different proportions, shades, stars, or coats of arms.

The exact inspiration for Miranda’s color choices has long been discussed. Accounts connect them with a conversation involving Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a fresco seen in Genoa, and the yellow-red-blue standard of Hamburg’s Bürgerwache. These stories explain possible influences, but Miranda is the person credited with designing the revolutionary tricolor itself—not Simón Bolívar or José de San Martín.