The flag of Equatorial Guinea consists of three horizontal stripes in green, white and red, with a flat blue triangle at the hoist, and the country’s coat of arms in the centre of the white stripe. In this form, it is used as the national flag, the state flag and the naval ensign. The flag was adopted on 12th of October in 1968 to mark independence from Spain. As there were no regulations governing its use until 1973, the flag was usually flown without the coat of arms. Green symbolises the country’s natural resources, agriculture and the jungle. Blue symbolises the sea, which connects the mainland with the islands. White symbolises peace. Red symbolises the bloodshed of the independence fighters. The tree that appears on the national flag and in the coat of arms is the cotton-silk tree.
In the arms is to see a mangrove-tree on a silver shield, over there are six golden six-jaged stars jag. By other sources should the tree allegedly be a cotton-silk tree, under which in the middle og the nineteenth century the Spanish and king Bonkoro of Bata came to their first agreement. The six stars above the shield symbolize the mainland and the five islands of the country. Beneath the shield the inscription: "Unity, Peace, Justice". Between 1973 and 1979, in the time of the rule of Macia Nguema, was used an other coat of arms.
The name "Guinea" described earlier the entire west coast of Africa between Cape Dakar and Cape Lopez. It goes back to the name "aguinaou", a word of the Tuareg, to describe peoples south of the Sahara: "Blacks".
