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Botswana

Republic of Botswana

2:3~ by Mark Sensen and António Martins, 22 Apr 1999
Flag adopted 30 September 1966

Explanation of the flag
Legislation on Botswana emblems
Construction sheet
Botswana flag as a casket cover

Other Botswana pages:

See also:

CIA World Factbook

Explanation of the flag

The colors on the flag correspond to those on the national coat of arms. The blue represents water (the motto on the national arms is PULA, meaning "let there be rain"). The white-black-white bands depict the racial harmony of the people as well as the pluralist nature of the society. They are inspired by the coat of the zebra, the national animal.
Nick Artimovich, 1 November 1996

The blue colour a symbol of rain, how lovely!
Heather Chalcraft, 27 Apr 2003

I returned today after ten days in Botswana. Flag flying is not very common and is mainly restricted to the government and the larger commercial organisations. Many of the flags which I saw were in a very sorry state of repair - a case of up the pole and forgotten! On further inquiry I learned that there is a law which requires government permission to be granted before the flag of Botswana can be flown. How effectively this is implemented (if at all) is unclear but it might explain the lack of flags. Certainly there were no flags available for purchase.
Bruce Berry, 14 April 1998

The colour shade for the blue used on the national flag is being discussed by the Cabinet. There has been a problem with standardisation and so flags with various shades of blue (from different manufacturers) are seen and the government wants to change this. As soon as I get the confirmed details, I will share them with you.
Bruce Berry, 10 May 2001

Legislation on Botswana emblems

Act 25,1966

PART I Blazon of the Arms or Ensigns Armorial of Botswana

Argent three barrulets wavy in fesse azure between in chief three cog-wheels, one above engaged with two below and in base a bull's head caboshed proper, and for the supporters on either side a zebra the dexter supporting an elephant's tusk the sinister a stalk of sorghum proper. Motto "Pula".

PART II Design of the National Flag of Botswana

Five horizontal stripes having colour and width as follows, that is to say taken from the top_
1st Stripe_azure blue having a width equal to 9/24ths of the total depth of the flag.
2nd Stripe_white having a width equal to 1/24th of such depth.
3rd Stripe_black having a width equal to 4/24ths of such depth.
4th Stripe_white having a width equal to 1/24th of such depth.
5th Stripe_azure blue having a width equal to 9/24ths of such depth.

PART III Design of the Standard of the President of Botswana

An azure blue flag with a black circular disk (having a diameter equal to 12/24ths of the depth of the flag) superimposed on the centre of the flag, a white circular disk (having a diameter equal to 10/24ths of the depth of the flag) superimposed on the centre of the black disk and the coat of arms superimposed on the white disk.

Source: Governmental document about Botswana Emblems.
Santiago Tazon, 27 Apr 2001

This agrees well with what I posted recently based on Album 2000 information. However, I drew the white disk on presidential flag sized 11/24 (as I had no numbers there).
Zeljko Heimer, 30 Apr 2001

Construction sheet

by Zeljko Heimer, 18 Mar 2001

The construction sheet is provided along the edges of the figure so (9+1+4+1+9):36. The image at FOTW agrees with this, either Mark Sensen was aware of this data or he had a good artistic feeling.
Source: Album 2000.
Zeljko Heimer, 18 Mar 2001

Botswana flag as a casket cover

I found in "Courrier International" (#524, 16 November 2000) a rather odd story involving the Botswana flag.
The original paper reporting the story is from the Spanish newspaper "El Pais". A colour picture shows the casket of "El Negro de Banyoles" just before the funeral ceremony hold in Gaborone on 5 October 2000.

Who was "El Negro de Banyoles"?
Ca. 1830, two French adventurers-naturalists living in Cape Town, Jules and Edouard Verreaux, unearthed the corpse of a tribal chief shortly after his funeral and stuffed it using taxidermy methods. In 1888, the Catalan veterinarian Francisco Darder, then curator of the zoo of Barcelona, bought the stuffed corpse, known as "the Bechuana", and exhibited it later in the Darder Museum he founded in 1916 in Banyoles (province of Gerona) to display his naturalist's collections. "El Negro" became a source of fascination and legends for the inhabitants of the city.
In 1991, the physician Alphonse Arcelin, of Haitian origin, asked the municipality to remove the corpse from the Museum. The corpse was removed from the Museum during the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games to avoid a risk of boycott by African countries.
In 1996, the Spanish government decided to avoid an international crisis and asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find a solution. Since the warrior had lived in Southern Africa, and even if his real ethnical origin is unknown, the government of Botswana decided to claim and re-bury the corpse. The warrior had probably lived in what is now South Africa, but South Africa was not considered a suitable solution because of its political situation.
In September 2000, the corpse was removed one night from the Museum and sent to Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, and buried during an official ceremony in Tsholofelo. Since it was not possible to decide whether the warrior was a Tswana, a Bushman (Khoisan) he was re-buried as an "African".
Ivan Sache, 26 Nov 2000