Waving proudly in the Zocalo square in Mexico City is the Mexican flag – an object of great national pride. In fact, the flag is such a source of pride that it even has its own holiday – Día de la Bandera or Flag Day, which takes place every February 24 and is considered a national holiday.
Mexican Flag Colors
The flag’s design is mainly three vertical stripes colored red, white, and green. In the middle is the country’s national crest with an eagle resting on a cactus and holding a serpent in one talon. It was originally designed back in 1821 and has since remained mainly the same, albeit undergoing some minor changes within the last 200 years.
One interesting fact about the design is that it looks like the Italian tricolor flag; however, the Mexican flag was actually made before the Italian flag. Another distinction is that the Mexican flag uses darker shades of red and green, while the dimensions are also different. Also, despite some similarities with other flags, the design of the Mexican flag is that way because of what each element symbolizes.
What do the colors of the Mexican flag mean?
The three colors of the Mexican flag contribute to the overall character of the country it symbolizes. The green part means hope and prosperity, the white part signifies purity, while the red part stands for the blood that was shed by the heroes of Mexico over the years.
Previously, however, the colors stood for other things. The color green was for independence, the color white was a symbol of the Roman Catholic religion, while the red color stood for the union formed by the Mexicans and Spaniards.
The eagle of the Mexican flag
The eagle is part of the Mexican coat of arms. Its presence is based on a legend in which Huitzilopochtli, the supreme deity of the Aztecs, commanded the people to live in a place where an eagle lands on a cactus whilst holding on a snake. The Aztec people wandered until, in 1345, they found eagle perched on a cactus and eating a snake on an island within Lake Texcoco. They settled down and built the city of Tenochtitlan, which means the “Place of the Prickly Pear Cactus.” This was the most important city of the Aztecs until it was destroyed by the Spaniards when they invaded in 1521. Mexico City was built from the ruins of the ancient city.
The eagle, as well as the rest of the emblem, is actually a symbol of the Mexicans’ Aztec heritage. Even the flag colors have their own origins. At the beginning of the 19th century Mexico fought for its independence from Spain, and a coalition army was formed of rebels and some Spanish troops and was called the Ejercito Trigarante, or the Army of the Three Guarantees. Throughout the war, this army was represented by a flag with green, white, and red colors. The colors were preserved on the flag’s present design in order to remember the struggles of the Mexican people as they fought for their independence.
