Mauritania
What the source says
Referenced, awaiting primary-source reviewFirst adopted 1 April 1959; red stripes added 25 October 2017 following the August 5 referendum. Green [and] the star and crescent [are] symbols of Islam. The red bands [represent] the blood shed by Mauritanians who fought for the country's independence from France. Lawmakers wanted the flag to include symbols representing the country's fight for independence.
Referenced, not verified: a secondary work states this, and the document that constitutes the flag has not been read for this entry. What the marks mean.
Colors and meaning
Gold(r1) #FFD700
Symbolism and history(r1)
A gold crescent and star on green, both symbols of Islam, bordered since 2017 by thin red stripes added by referendum; lawmakers wanted the flag to include symbols of the country's fight for independence.
Most similar flags
The 6 closest of the 194 other national flags, ranked by a similarity index computed from the flag images themselves. The number is that index, 0–100 — not a claim that the two flags are “X% identical”.
- Burkina Faso81
the same horizontal band layout; the same colours in similar amounts.
- Vanuatu80
the same horizontal band layout; the same colours in similar amounts.
- Togo79
the same horizontal band layout; the same colours in similar amounts.
- Ghana77
the same horizontal band layout; the same colours in similar amounts.
- Lithuania77
the same horizontal band layout; the same colours in similar amounts.
- Suriname77
the same horizontal band layout; the same colours in similar amounts.
Computed at build time: each flag is rasterised to 64x48, and the score is 0.55 × colour overlap + 0.45 × structure. A different weighting would rank these differently. How the index works.
References — not verification
(r1) Referenced to Flag of Mauritania (Wikipedia (English)) on 2026-07-17. States the adoption year, which colors the flag has, what the colors mean and the symbolism and history on this page. The passage it states them in is quoted at the top of this entry.
Further reading: Flag of Mauritania on Wikipedia