Sao Tome and Principe
What the source says
Referenced, awaiting primary-source reviewAdopted upon independence from Portugal on 12 July 1975. Green, yellow, and red [are] Pan-African colours [and] represent the São Toméan independence movement; the red triangle represents equality; the two black stars represent the country's two eponymous islands, São Tomé and Príncipe. [Whitney Smith: green the lush vegetation, yellow the tropical sun; the CIA World Factbook: yellow represents cocoa.]
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
Symbolism and history(r1)
Two black stars in a yellow central band, one for each of the eponymous islands (São Tomé and Príncipe), sit between green bands, with a red hoist triangle, adopted at independence from Portugal in 1975.
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”.
- Myanmar73
the same horizontal band layout; the same colours in similar amounts.
- Niger66
the same horizontal band layout; similar colours in a different arrangement.
- Mozambique65
the same horizontal band layout; similar colours in a different arrangement.
- Togo65
the same horizontal band layout; similar colours in a different arrangement.
- Ghana64
the same horizontal band layout; similar colours in a different arrangement.
- Mauritius64
the same horizontal band layout; similar colours in a different arrangement.
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 São Tomé and Príncipe (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 São Tomé and Príncipe on Wikipedia