Americas

Flag of Panama

Panama is located at the narrow isthmus connecting North and South America and is home to the Panama Canal, one of the world's most important engineering achievements, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and handling around 5% of global trade. The canal was completed in 1914 and transferred to Panamanian sovereignty in 1999. Panama has extraordinary biodiversity, with more bird species than the continental United States and Canada combined.

CapitalPanama City
RegionAmericas
Current flag since1903
Main coloursRed, Blue, White
Populationabout 4.4 million
Areaabout 75,000 km²
Flags in history2

Population and area are rounded.

What the flag of Panama means

The quarters stand for the two political parties of the time: blue for the Conservatives and red for the Liberals, with white for peace between them. The blue star represents honesty and purity, the red star authority and law. The flag was designed by the family of Manuel Amador Guerrero, the first president, and first raised in 1903.

How to recognise it

Quartered white-red (top) and blue-white (bottom) with a blue star and red star in the white quarters.

Did you know?

Panama is the only place in the world where you can see the sun rise on the Pacific and set on the Atlantic.

Flag history of Panama

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

1903–present

Republic of Panama (independence)

Panama's quartered flag — white with a blue star, white with a red star, blue, and red — was designed by Manuel Amador Guerrero's family and first flown on November 4, 1903, the day after independence from Colombia. The blue represents the Conservative Party; red represents the Liberal Party; white represents the peace between them. The design was chosen to symbolise national unity across political lines — an ambitious hope for a country whose independence was largely engineered by the United States to secure the Canal Zone.

1821–1903

Department of Colombia

Panama declared independence from Spain in 1821 and immediately joined Gran Colombia, later becoming a department of Colombia when Gran Colombia dissolved. Panama's attempts at independence in 1840, 1841, and later years were all unsuccessful. The 1903 independence was backed by the United States, which wanted to build a canal and found Colombia unwilling to cede the territory on American terms. Panama flew Colombia's yellow-blue-red tricolor for 82 years.

Related historical states

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

1819–1831

Gran Colombia

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.