Flag of Senegal
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| Use | National flag and ensign |
|---|---|
| Proportion | 2:3 |
| Adopted | August 20, 1960 |
| Design | A vertical tricolour of green, yellow and red; charged with a green five-pointed star at the centre. |
The flag of Senegal (French: le drapeau du Sénégal) is a tricolour consisting of three vertical green, yellow and red bands charged with a five-pointed green star at the centre. Adopted in 1960 to replace the flag of the Mali Federation, it has been the flag of the Republic of Senegal since the country gained independence that year. The present and previous flags were inspired by French Tricolour, which flew over Senegal until 1960.
Under French colonial rule over Senegal, the authorities forbade the colony from using its own distinctive colonial flag because they were worried that this could increase nationalistic sentiment and lead to calls for independence. With the rise of the decolonization movement in Africa, the French were obliged to grant limited autonomy to Senegal as a self-governing republic within the French Community. Senegal was combined with French Soudan on April 4, 1959, to form the Mali Federation. That day, a new flag was adopted: a vertical green, yellow and red tricolour with a stylized depiction of a human being (referred to as a kanaga) on the centre band. The federation attained independence from France on June 20, 1960.
The federation between the two former colonies did not last long and ended two months after independence. On August 20, Senegal separated from the federation and became an independent country. The new nation's flag kept the colours and stripes of the federation's flag, with the only change being the replacement of the kanaga with a green star.
In April 2004, the flag and its design were hoist into the public colloquium when Moustapha Niasse, then-leader of the Alliance of the Forces of Progress, hosted a press conference regarding the "modification of the election code and the set up of an independent commission to check the lawfulness of the next legislative and presidential elections." At the conference's coda, Niasse explored what he felt was "defense of the symbols of the Republic against the division threat and the offence against national unity", and produced "[a] visible replacement, on certain official documents, of the green star of the central yellow stripe of the national flag by a golden baobab", alongside what he described as "the non-performance of the national anthem during official ceremonies".
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