Bookmark this site!

Mexican Flag

An overview of the Mexican Flag History

Everybody probably knows that the most respected symbol among Mexican people is the Mexican flag. However, not many people know how symbolic the flag of Mexico really is; this small article will show you some of the most important points on the history of the Mexican flag.

The proportion of height versus width of the Mexican flag is 4:7. It is vertically divided into three sections, which have the same size. Each one of these sections has a distinctive color, which symbolize different aspects of the Mexican ideal of a nation. The middle band, colored white, contains the National Mexican Crest, a symbol that is very important to Mexican people.

The Mexican flag colors are three: green, white and red.

Green: represents hope for a better nation, where people join together to achieve and maintain peace between them.

White: represents the purity of catholic faith.

Red: the color of blood. With the inclusion of this color on their flag, Mexican people pay a tribute to those who died during the terrible war for independence.

Of course, the flag of Mexico was not always as it is now. Through history, there have been many different Mexican flags.

From the beginning of Mexican history, the people who lived on the central part of Mexico already used different emblems to represent themselves and their neighbors. When the Spaniards arrived to the Mexican territory, they introduced their own flags and symbols as well. Some central regions of Mexico also had distinctive flags, like the Aztec flag or the Tlaxcalteca flag.

During the colonial years, there wasn't any flag to represent the territory of “New Spain”, but it was common to find crests of the Spanish Monarchy used as a symbol of their lands on the Americas.

During the beginning of the War for Independence, the Mexican troops used a flag with a drawing of the “Virgen de Guadalupe”, while the Spanish troops had a flag with the “Virgen de los Remedios” on it.

The Mexican flag experienced many more changes through the War of Independence period. Finally, in 1823, the Mexican flag was declared an unique national symbol by a Constitutional Congress, and its overall design was based on a 1821 decree that specified the Mexican flag size and colors, and established that the symbol on the center of the flag had to be an eagle.

This eagle was replaced with many other symbols later, until the National crest was chosen. The last decree that specifies the design of the Mexican flag was promulgated in 1983 by who was the President of Mexico at that moment, Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado.