The United Arab Emirates is a state in the Middle East made up of seven emirates. The flag of the UAE is made up of four Pan-Arab colors of red, black, white and green. The flag is a rectangular divided into four sections, featuring a vertical red band on the hoist side and three horizontal stripes of equal width and length of green, white, and black from top to bottom. The design looks like the letter E. The Pan-Arab colors each represent an era. The flag was officially adopted on December 2, 1971. All the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates use the federal flag interchangeably as the Emirates’ flag.
The red color of the flag represents unity among the seven emirates of the UAE. Each of the seven emirates of the UAE has a red and white flag. The red color also represents the sacrifices of the preceding generations to set up the foundation of the nation and the people who have lost their lives safeguarding the nation. The white color stands for honesty, peace, and the contributions of UAE to world peace. Black represents the strength of the nation’s people and rejection of extremism and injustices. Green stands for the environment, wealth, joy and love. The UAE has a flag day which is celebrated on November 3rd. The day is set aside to celebrate the two founders of the state.
In 1971 there was an advertisement for a flag design competition when the seven emirates of the UAE decided to unite. Abdullah Mohammad Al Maainah, a 19-year-old then, decided to submit. Abdullah’s design, which is the current flag, was picked from a total of 1,030 designs that were submitted. The colors had a different meaning to Abdullah. Black symbolized the state's oil reserves, and green stood for the green environment. Red and white were the colors present in the flags of all the seven emirates, so the two colors represented the unity of the nations.
There have been no previous versions of the flag. The UAE flag today remains unchanged from the original design. The seven Emirates each had their flags before the commissioning of the current national flag. The flag of each emirate was a plain red and was a more of a banner rather than a flag, and it was symbolizing a dedication to Prophet Mohammed. In 1820 the British signed a treaty with the six emirates to be under the British Empire and compelled them to be under the jurisdiction of the British. All Emirates were forced to add a white segment of the hoist side of the flag. The emirate of Fujairah did not sign the treaty and instead used a plain red flag.
This page was last modified on May 1st, 2018
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