India Flag

How to identify it

Three equal horizontal bands of saffron, white and green, with a navy blue 24-spoke wheel centred in the white band.

Design and construction

Proportions

2:3

Adoption and legal status

22 July 1947 by the Constituent Assembly

Construction

The Flag Code of India sets the proportions, permitted sizes and the diameter of the Ashoka Chakra, which matches the width of the white band.

Officially documented meaning

The wheel is the Ashoka Chakra, the dharma wheel from the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath. The Flag Code prescribes the design and its handling.

Commonly repeated interpretation

Not official: Saffron for courage, white for truth and green for fertility is widely taught. It follows an interpretation offered by S. Radhakrishnan and is not written into the Flag Code.

History of the design

The design derives from the Swaraj flag of the Indian National Congress, in which a spinning wheel occupied the centre. The Constituent Assembly replaced the spinning wheel with the Ashoka Chakra shortly before independence.

Similar flags

Compare the details that separate these designs.

• 
  Niger

  Niger is orange, white and green with a plain orange disc and no spokes.

• 
  Ireland

  Ireland uses the same colour family but in vertical bands and with no central emblem.

Sources