Tanzanian flag

Posted by Ali

This morning as my mum browsed our local newspaper during breakfast she found a BC quiz and tested my dad and me. One question asked, "In what year was BC's flag adopted?" I guessed the year BC came into confederation, 1871, but was surprised to find out it was actually adopted 89 years later, in 1960. Later on, I started wondering about Tanzania's flag so I did some research. Here's what I found.

National flag of the United Republic of Tanzania

Flag Meaning: The green symbolizes agriculture and the fertility of the land, and the black stripe represents the citizens of Tanzania. The blue stands for the Indian Ocean, which is on Tanzania's eastern coastline, and the yellow stripes represent the country's mineral wealth.
Flag History: The Tanzanian flag was adopted on June 30, 1964. The Tanzanian flag originates from the flags of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the two countries that merged together to form Tanzania in April 1964. Tanganyika's flag was green with a yellow edged black horizontal stripe centrally placed; while Zanzibar's flag was a horizontal striped tricolor of blue, black and green. Tanzania chose a diagonal design to show equal status to both flags. (Flag information courtesy of Worldflags101.com)

Current flag of Zanzibar

In my research I also found out that in 2005 Zanzibar, an island in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Tanzania, adopted their own flag, which includes an inset of the Tanzanian flag in the top left corner. Apparently many were not happy with this decision. Interesting! I have so much to learn about this country and area of the world.