Benin

About the flag

Benin is correct: it uses the Pan‑African colors in a distinct arrangement—green at the hoist with yellow over red—unlike Guinea’s simple vertical tricolor, DR Congo’s blue flag with a star and red diagonal stripe, or Cape Verde’s blue field with a ring of stars. Adopted at independence in 1960 (when the country was called Dahomey; it became Benin in 1975), the colors symbolize green for hope and the land, yellow for wealth, and red for the courage and sacrifices of its people. Benin, on West Africa’s coast, is famed as the birthplace of Vodun and the historic Kingdom of Dahomey. Memory tip: Benin begins with B, and its flag “begins” with a green band at the pole—Guinea’s has three equal vertical stripes with no separate hoist band.