The United States turned 250 this summer, and to celebrate, we shot off fireworks and went to parades and, above it all, waved the American flag. Why is that? “Every country on Earth, for the most part, has evolved a national flag,” says James Ferrigan, a vexillologist (aka flag expert and historian) and the current treasurer of the North American Vexillological Association. “It’s kind of their one chance to send a nonverbal message to the world, like, ‘Hey, we’re over here! This is us!'”
That desire to be seen—across the land or ocean, as well as more philosophically—helps explain why, even though there’s no law requiring countries to develop a flag, we all do it. “No one wants to be left out,” he says. “It’s almost like we’re hardwired for it, you know?”
But choosing a color? That posed a problem—for a while, at least.
“Let’s say I want to turn this fabric into a new color,” Ferrigan says. “How do I do it?” One option, human blood, would have eventually worn off. Paint and natural pigments came next, but like blood, these coatings didn’t last long. Dyes changed the flag game considerably, but it turns out not all dyes were created equal—which is why we hardly ever see one particular color on flags.
I talked to Ferrigan and Michael Green, the vexillologist behind Flags for Good, an Indianapolis-based company that makes flags they believe in (and donates a portion of every sale to relevant causes), to learn why this color has been so historically absent. Read on to discover the rarest flag color—and see if you guessed correctly.
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What is the rarest color for a national flag?
Believe it or not, it’s purple. Currently, only five countries (out of nearly 200) have purple in their official or co-official flags. “It’s exceedingly rare,” Ferrigan says. And those countries are …
- Dominica: “You have the Sisserou parrot on Dominica’s,” Ferrigan says. This protected (and purple) parrot, which is the national bird of the Caribbean-island nation and isn’t found anywhere else in the world, is featured prominently on many of the country’s national symbols.
- Spain: “The lions on Spanish flags are properly called purpure, or morado,” Ferrigan says. “So they’re purple.” (Purpure is a shade of purple common in heraldry, and morado is the Spanish word for “purple.”) Sometimes the lions appear pink, especially on the internet, but purple is the official color used on Spanish coats of arms and flags.
- Nicaragua: The blue-and-white-striped flag of this Central American country centers its coat of arms, which features a rainbow over volcanoes and a Phrygian cap, a red headpiece that symbolizes liberty and freedom. There is a tiny purple stripe in the rainbow.
- El Salvador: Like Nicaragua’s flag, El Salvador’s derives from an earlier Federal Republic of Central America flag, with blue and white stripes and the country’s coat of arms. Again, there is a small bit of purple in the center rainbow.
- Bolivia: There is no missing the purple in the Wiphala, a checkerboard banner with a rainbow motif that is the co-official flag of Bolivia. Adopted in 2009 to honor Indigenous peoples of the Andes region, it flies alongside Bolivia’s traditional tricolor flag on government buildings.
Why do so few countries use purple?
“Until the 1850s, purple was the hardest dye to produce,” Green says. “It was mainly made by using a sea snail, and it took a ton of them to make even a small amount of dye.” Ferrigan says you’d need something like 10,000 of these little mollusks, which were found only off the coast of modern-day Lebanon, to dye a single garment!
In 1856, an 18-year-old British chemist accidentally synthesized the first purple synthetic dye, but by then, the die was cast, so to speak. “Since most national flags were designed before the 1850s, purple was just not a practical color,” Green says.
What does purple traditionally symbolize, and who uses it?
Because of the rarity of the sea-snail dye (called Tyrian purple) in ancient times, only the very wealthy and powerful had access. “So purple was reserved for royalty and those who could afford it,” Green says. Even today, 170 years after purple dye became available to the masses, purple is widely used by monarchies around the world, perhaps most familiarly by the British royal family.
The late Queen Elizabeth and the current King Charles wore deep purple velvet garments called Robes of Estate at their coronations. Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, and Queen Camilla also wore purple robes, and Britain’s Imperial State Crown is purple. Royal families in other countries, including Japan, Thailand and Spain, also wear purple royal attire.
What is the most common flag color?
“Far and away, red,” says Green. Red not only represents the “blood of the patriots that fought” for their country, independence or a cause, he notes—it’s also an easy color to produce. “In fact, it appears on over 70% of national flags,” he says. Blue comes in second, and white, which is arguably the easiest color to use for a flag, is third.
Primary colors came to dominate because they were readily available and could be acquired locally, Ferrigan says. He gives the example of Denmark’s 800-year-old national flag, the oldest in the world, which has a white cross on a red background. The red was probably a vegetable dye called madder until cochineal, an insect-based dye used by Native Americans, was introduced to Europe. Wood pulp, bark and flowers were used for other colors, and indigo (a deep blue dye) spread in the 16th century.
After that, it was off to the races for red, white and blue—in all kinds of combinations. Ferrigan says the Dutch used these colors on their ships (after trying orange and finding it didn’t last), which prompted Peter the Great, who studied shipbuilding in the Netherlands, to bring the combo to Russia. And then there’s the red, white and blue flags of France, Britain, the U.S and dozens of other countries.
What other flag colors are unpopular?
“Orange is another great example of a color that rarely appears on flags, and for good historical reason,” Green says. “It was used, but when exposed to UV light, the orange colors would fade quickly and turn into undesirable shades.” That’s one reason the Dutch swapped out orange for red on their flag back in the early 17th century (though orange is still the national color, as anyone watching the World Cup can attest).
Gray, brown and pink are also unpopular national flag colors.
Is the prevalence of purple changing?
Potentially, but slowly. Every national flag using purple today was developed after the dye became readily available, but it’s not like countries change their flags often. “Designs rarely change at the national level unless there is a large upheaval in the government,” Green says. “But we now are seeing a surge in subnational identities, like states and cities, moving toward wanting to utilize the power of flags to build identity, pride and belonging.”
The Wiphala, Bolivia’s co-official national flag, is a good example of a young flag using purple, but it’s a rarity. “Most national flags are simplifications of historic coats of arms,” Green says. “Younger nations, the United States included, follow the vexillological traditions set by their predecessors.”
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Sources:
- James Ferrigan, vexillological historian and treasurer of the North American Vexillological Association; phone interview, July 9, 2026
- Michael Green, founder of Flags for Good and technical editor of The Complete Guide to Flags of the World, 4th Edition; email interview, July 10, 2026
- Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica: “National Bird”
- Gov.uk: “The Coronation Roll”
- Royal.uk: “A first glimpse at Their Majesties’ Coronation robes”
- Science History Institute: “William Henry Perkin”
- World Population Review: “Countries with red, white and blue flags”
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