Uruguay’s flag (11 July 1830) has nine horizontal stripes alternating white and blue and a white canton charged with the golden Sun of May with a human face and sixteen rays. The stripes recall the country’s original departments; the Sun symbolises liberty and the Río de la Plata revolutionary tradition. A 2:3 ratio is fixed by law; etiquette covers precedence, half‑masting, and approved contexts for the national, Artigas, and Treinta y Tres flags.
Uruguay’s national flag reflects the Río de la Plata region’s independence movement and the young state’s administrative structure. The design adopted on 11 July 1830 settled on nine alternating white and blue stripes—five white and four blue—with a white canton bearing the Sun of May, a radiant golden sun with a face and sixteen alternating straight and wavy rays.
The earliest national symbolism grew from the revolutionary milieu that followed the 1810 May Revolution in Buenos Aires and José Gervasio Artigas’s federalist programme. Artigas’s own banner (blue field with a white diagonal band and a red stripe) remains an official historic flag. After a period of Brazilian annexation as the Cisplatina Province, Uruguayan sovereignty was recognised by the 1828 Treaty of Montevideo.
Uruguay’s first national flag decree in 1828 envisaged more stripes to represent departments, but legibility concerns led lawmakers to standardise nine stripes in 1830. The Sun of May connects Uruguay to the broader emancipation symbolism of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, echoing Incan sun imagery and Enlightenment motifs. The 2:3 proportion and the canton’s construction are defined to preserve consistent manufacture.
Uruguayan law distinguishes three official flags: the National Flag (Pabellón Nacional), the Artigas Flag (used by the armed forces and police), and the Flag of the Treinta y Tres (commemorating the 1825 patriots). Protocols specify order of precedence, occasions for display, half‑masting during official mourning, and dignified retirement. The national flag is flown across ministries, schools, and embassies, while the Artigas and Treinta y Tres flags appear in ceremonial and military contexts.
Public symbolism reads the white stripes as peace and the blue stripes as the nation’s rivers and sky; the nine stripes collectively recall the original departmental division. The Sun signifies the birth of a nation and republican liberty. Minor artistic refinements to the sun’s rendering have occurred, but the essential design has remained stable since the nineteenth century.
The flag features centrally on dates such as 18 July (Constitution Day) and 25 August (Independence). In civic education, correct handling—never letting the flag touch the ground, proper folding, and respectful storage—is emphasised. Abroad, the banner identifies Uruguayan missions and ships and appears at multilateral organisations with codified precedence.
Over nearly two centuries, Uruguay’s flag has balanced local identity—through departmental symbolism and historic banners—with regional heritage, embodied in the Sun of May. The result is a distinctive national emblem that is immediately legible in South America and beyond.