Americas

Flag of Bolivia

Bolivia is a landlocked South American country with one of the world's highest and most isolated seats of government — La Paz, the administrative capital, sits at over 3,600 metres above sea level. The country has the world's largest salt flat, Salar de Uyuni (10,582 sq km), which becomes the world's largest natural mirror when flooded with a thin film of water. Bolivia also holds the world's largest known lithium reserves, a resource critical for electric vehicle batteries.

CapitalSucre
RegionAmericas
Current flag since1851
Main coloursRed, Yellow, Green
Populationabout 12 million
Areaabout 1,099,000 km²
GeographyLandlocked
Flags in history3

Population and area are rounded.

What the flag of Bolivia means

Red represents the blood shed by the nation's heroes, yellow its mineral wealth, and green the fertility of the land. The state flag adds the coat of arms, with the silver mountain of Potosí, an alpaca, a breadfruit tree and a sheaf of wheat. Since 2009 the Wiphala, the square chequered flag of the Andean peoples, has also been an official national symbol.

How to recognise it

Horizontal red-yellow-green with the Bolivian coat of arms in the centre.

Did you know?

Bolivia has two capital cities: Sucre (constitutional) and La Paz (seat of government).

Easily confused with

Bolivia's flag is often mixed up with these. Learn to tell them apart:

Ethiopia

Ghana

Flag history of Bolivia

Every flag that has flown over Bolivia, from today back through time.

1851–present

Republic of Bolivia (red-yellow-green)

Bolivia's horizontal red-yellow-green tricolor was established by law in 1851, though the colours had been in use since independence in 1825. Red represents the blood of independence heroes; yellow the country's mineral wealth (Bolivia has some of the world's largest lithium and tin deposits); green the fertile land. The Wiphala — a rainbow-chequered flag of the indigenous Aymara people — was added as a co-official state flag in the 2009 constitution.

1825–1851

Early Republic of Bolivia

Bolivia declared independence on August 6, 1825, named after its liberator Simón Bolívar. The earliest flags used different colour arrangements — some sources show green-red-yellow and other combinations — as the new republic experimented before settling on the current order. Bolivia's independence came partly through the campaigns of both Bolívar (from the north) and San Martín (from the south), making it a meeting point of two great liberation movements.

1559–1825

Upper Peru (Spanish)

For nearly 300 years Bolivia was "Upper Peru" — the Audiencia de Charcas within the Spanish Empire, flying the Cross of Burgundy. Its silver mountain at Potosí was the richest mine on earth, bankrolling the Spanish crown and the global silver trade. That wealth, built on brutal forced indigenous labour, makes the green stripe's "mineral wealth" a double-edged symbol in independent Bolivia.

Related historical states

Empires, kingdoms and republics that once covered part of Bolivia.

Andean

Inca / Wiphala

The Wiphala is a square 7×7 rainbow patchwork; the color of its longest diagonal identifies the region. A modern Andean emblem — the Incas are not known to have used flags as such.

1836–1839

Peru-Bolivian Confederation

A red field bearing the combined arms of North Peru, South Peru, and Bolivia, under the brief union led by Andrés de Santa Cruz.

1816–1820s

United Provinces of the Río de la Plata

The state that declared independence at Tucumán in 1816 and is the direct forerunner of Argentina; its sky-blue-white flag gained the golden Sun of May in 1818.

1825–1826

Bolivia (first flag, 1825)

The very first flag of newly independent Bolivia: a green field bordered in red with golden stars, used briefly before the red-yellow-green tricolour took its place.