Ecuador is a small country on South America's northwestern coast named after the equator that runs through its territory. It is considered one of the world's most biodiverse countries by land area, and the Galápagos Islands — an Ecuadorian archipelago 1,000 kilometres offshore — are where Charles Darwin developed key insights that led to his theory of natural selection. Ecuador was the first country to enshrine the legal rights of nature in its national constitution, in 2008.
Population and area are rounded.
Ecuador shares the yellow, blue and red of Gran Colombia. Its coat of arms shows Mount Chimborazo, the Guayas River with a steamship, a sun surrounded by zodiac signs for the months of the 1845 revolution, and an Andean condor with its wings spread. The current flag was adopted in 1860.
Horizontal yellow-blue-red with a double-width yellow stripe, like Colombia, but with a coat of arms (a condor above Mount Chimborazo) in the centre.
Ecuador is one of only two countries in the world named after a geographical feature — the equator.
Ecuador's flag is often mixed up with these. Learn to tell them apart:
Every flag that has flown over Ecuador, from today back through time.
Ecuador's flag is visually almost identical to Colombia's and Venezuela's — all three descend from Gran Colombia's yellow-blue-red tricolor. Ecuador distinguishes its state flag with a large coat of arms featuring Mount Chimborazo, a steamboat, and a condor. The proportions of the stripes (yellow taking half the flag) are also inherited directly from Francisco de Miranda's original Gran Colombia design.
After Gran Colombia dissolved in 1830, Ecuador struggled to differentiate its flag from those of Colombia and Venezuela. Various designs were tried with different coat of arms configurations. The tricolor stripes were maintained throughout but arrangements and arms changed with each new constitution and government.
Ecuador (then known as the District of the South) was part of Simón Bolívar's Gran Colombia from 1819 to 1830. The yellow-blue-red tricolor designed by Francisco de Miranda was shared across what is now Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador — and it still unites all three visually today, more than 190 years after Gran Colombia dissolved.
Empires, kingdoms and republics that once covered part of Ecuador.
Bolívar's union of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. Its yellow-blue-red tricolor is the direct ancestor of all three modern flags.
The Pacific port declared itself an independent province in 1820, flying a white flag with light-blue stripes and three stars, before Bolívar incorporated it into Gran Colombia.
The 24 states, provinces and regions of Ecuador with their own flags.
Azuay
Bolívar
Carchi
Orellana
Esmeraldas
Cañar
Guayas
Chimborazo
Imbabura
Loja
Los Ríos
Manabí
Morona Santiago
Napo
El Oro
Pichincha
Sucumbíos
Tungurahua
Zamora Chinchipe
Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas
Santa Elena
Pastaza
Cotopaxi
GalápagosEcuador shares a land border with 2 countries: Colombia and Peru.
9 other national flags use the same main colours as Ecuador's.
Play Globalio and learn Ecuador's flag
Colombia
Venezuela
Peru
Andorra
Chad
DR Congo
Liechtenstein
Moldova
Mongolia
Romania