Ecuador’s tricolour—yellow (double height), blue, red—dates to 26 September 1860 and the Gran Colombia tradition. Yellow signifies abundance and the country’s resources; blue the sky and Pacific; red the blood shed for independence. The civil flag is the plain tricolour; the state and war flags bear the national coat of arms centred. Laws codify the 2:3 ratio, colour references, and crest sizing; protocol governs precedence, half‑masting, and dignified retirement.
Ecuador’s national flag emerged from the independence era and the subsequent dissolution of Gran Colombia. The familiar yellow–blue–red arrangement ultimately reflects Francisco de Miranda’s eighteenth‑century model and Simón Bolívar’s republican project, while Ecuador’s statutes have given the banner its distinct local expression.
Before independence, colonial emblems prevailed. The first local rupture came with Guayaquil’s declaration of independence on 9 October 1820, which introduced a separate civic symbolism. Following the Battle of Pichincha on 24 May 1822, the territory joined Gran Colombia and flew its tricolour—yellow, blue, red—across the Andes and the coast.
After 1830, Ecuador left the federation and experimented with designs that included stars and alternate stripe patterns. Nevertheless, the tricolour persisted in public life as a republican emblem. On 26 September 1860, during a period of national consolidation, Ecuador formally restored the horizontal tricolour with yellow occupying half the height, and blue and red each a quarter.
Public interpretation reads yellow as the country’s wealth and fertility—from coastal cacao and bananas to Andean agriculture and Amazonian resources. Blue recalls the Pacific Ocean and high equatorial skies. Red commemorates sacrifice in the wars of independence and later conflicts that shaped the republic. The standard proportion is 2:3, and norms specify colour shades to reduce manufacturing variance.
Since 1900, the state flag has carried the national coat of arms centred. The arms depict Mount Chimborazo, source of the Guayas River, and a steamship with a caduceus for commerce, all beneath a condor—that guardian of the Andes—framed by national flags and laurel and palm branches. The civil flag omits arms; the war flag includes them and follows military regulation sheets.
Protocol
governs precedence with foreign flags, half‑masting during national mourning by decree, proper illumination when flown at night, and dignified retirement when a flag is unserviceable. Schools teach correct folding and salutes, and public buildings display the flag on specified commemorative dates, including Flag Day on 26 September. At missions abroad, the state flag signals Ecuador’s sovereignty and identity.
The broad visual kinship with Colombia and Venezuela is acknowledged in official literature as a historical legacy, not a source of confusion. Construction sheets emphasise the double‑height yellow band and the presence or absence of arms as primary differentiators. Through minor heraldic refinements to the coat of arms over the twentieth century, the core tricolour has remained unchanged.
In civic education and diaspora communities, the Ecuadorian flag functions as a unifying emblem at festivals and elections. Its colours link coastal, Andean, and Amazonian regions in a single national narrative that begins in the revolutionary era and continues in modern republican life.