Countries with Purple Flags / Purple Country Flag 2025
Country↑ | Year Adopted | Dominant Colors | Purple Location | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Dominica | 1978 | Green, yellow, white, black, red | Feathers of the sisserou parrot that occupies the flag's center. |
 | El Salvador | 1912 | White, blue | In a rainbow that makes up part of the country's coat of arms, which is featured on the flag. |
 | Nicaragua | 1908 | White, blue | In a rainbow that makes up part of the country's coat of arms, which is featured on the flag. |
- Purple is exceedingly rare on national flags, and never serves as the primary color. It is, however, quite common on flags that represent cultural elements of the LGBTQ+ community.
Purple is associated with power, independence, royalty, nobility, wealth, devotion, peace, pride, and other positive attributes. As such, anyone would expect to find it in the flags of most countries. However, that is not the case. Indeed, out of all 195 country flags, only two feature the purple color. These include:
Dominica Flag
The current flag of Dominica was adopted in 1978. It later underwent minor changes in 1981, 1988, and 1990, resulting in the contemporary flag design.
The flag features a green field, which symbolizes the vegetation in the country. The greenfield is partitioned into four equal sections by a triple-colored cross in white, black, and yellow.
The white color represents the country’s pure water, while the black and yellow colors symbolize the land’s fertile soil and the country’s original inhabitants. On the other hand, the featured cross is representative of the holy trinity and Christianity. Further, the cross features a red disk with a sisserou parrot and ten five-tailed stars positioned around the parrot.
The red disk stands for justice, while the ten stars around it represent the nation’s ten parishes. The parrot symbolizes the parrot species and other wildlife native to Dominica Island. Also, the parrot features a purple color on the crown and the undersides, making the flag one of the rare flags with purple paint.
Nicaragua Flag
The flag of Nicaragua boasts of three horizontal stripes, which confine the national court of arms at the center. On the other hand, the court of arms comprises an image that incorporates five volcanoes, a rainbow, the sun’s rays, a rainbow, a triangle, and a cap in its design.
The five volcanoes represent the oneness of the Central American nations. On the other hand, the triangle in the image stands for equality, while the rainbow symbolizes peace. Also, the rainbow bears a purple color, which makes the flag unique.
The sun’s rays represent the country’s bright future, whereas the cap represents national liberty. The court of arms features the writing: “Republica De Nicaragua – America Central.” which means “Republic of Nicaragua – Central America.” in English.
When it comes to colors, the Nicaragua flag consists of multiple colors, including:
- Blue featured on the horizontal bands at the bottom and top of the flag
- White appearing between the two blue bands
- Gold utilized in the text in the court of arms
- Red used in the cap of liberty
- Green and yellow are applied in the mountains
- Red, orange, yellow, green, and blue purple featured in the rainbow
Why Are Purple Flags Not Common in The World?
The leading reason why there are no purple flags is that there were not enough resources for producing the purple color in the 19th century.
According to anecdotes, the purple color could come from rare species of sea snails that could only be found in the Mediterranean ocean. The production process was prolonged and cumbersome, as it could take 10,000 snails to produce a gram of dye. Also, the collected dye was costly, which was a major turn-off to many countries.
Another possible reason for the lack of purple country flags is some countries’ negative perception of the color. For instance, the purple color is associated with funerals in Italy. Therefore, some nations couldn’t adopt the color even after William Henry Perkin formulated the hue.
