Americas

Flag of Cuba

Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean Sea, known internationally for its preserved classic American cars from the 1950s, hand-rolled cigars, rum, and vibrant music and dance traditions including salsa, son cubano, and mambo. The country has been governed by a communist government since the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Despite economic challenges, Cuba has an unusually high number of doctors per capita and has developed a significant pharmaceutical and medical biotechnology sector.

CapitalHavana
RegionAmericas
Current flag since1902
Main coloursBlue, White, Red
Populationabout 11 million
Areaabout 110,000 km²
GeographyIsland nation
Flags in history4

Population and area are rounded.

What the flag of Cuba means

The three blue stripes stand for the three departments into which Cuba was divided at the time, and the two white stripes for the purity of the independence cause. The red triangle represents the blood shed for freedom and the equality of all, and the white star, La Estrella Solitaria, independence. Designed in 1849 by Narciso López and Miguel Teurbe Tolón, it was adopted in 1902.

How to recognise it

Five horizontal stripes (blue-white alternating) with a red equilateral triangle and white star at the hoist.

Did you know?

Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world at over 99%.

Easily confused with

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

Philippines

Chile

Flag history of Cuba

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

1902–present

Republic of Cuba

Cuba's flag — designed by exile Narciso López in 1849 — pre-dates Cuban independence by 50 years. López wanted to annex Cuba to the United States; later Cuban independence leaders adopted the same flag but stripped it of that meaning. The three blue stripes represent the three colonial provinces; the two white stripes represent peace; the red triangle stands for liberty, equality, and fraternity; the white star is the Lone Star of an independent Cuba. This design has flown without any change since 1902.

1898–1902

US military government

After the Spanish-American War of 1898 ended four centuries of Spanish rule, Cuba spent four years under a US military government flying the American flag, until the Republic was inaugurated in 1902. Independence came with strings attached — the Platt Amendment gave Washington the right to intervene and the lease on Guantánamo Bay — shaping a fraught US–Cuba relationship that endures.

1869–1898

Ten Years' War rebel flag

During the Ten Years' War (1868–1878) — Cuba's first major independence uprising — rebels in the Oriente region used a flag of red, white, and blue horizontal stripes. The Bayamo flag, raised when rebels captured the town of Bayamo in 1868, is considered Cuba's first revolutionary banner. These regional rebel flags were eventually unified around López's 1849 design during the final push for independence.

1516–1898

Spanish Colonial Cuba

Cuba was Spain's richest and most strategically important colonial possession — the "Pearl of the Antilles" — and one of the last two Spanish colonies in the Americas (along with Puerto Rico), not achieving independence until 1898 after the Spanish-American War. For nearly four centuries the Spanish flag flew over Havana's fortresses, changed only by the particular ensigns of successive Spanish dynasties.

Other flags in blue, white and red

30 other national flags use the same main colours as Cuba's.

Play Globalio and learn Cuba's flag