Country profile: Ecuador

The colours of the Ecuadorian flag are those of Francisco de Miranda's flag and of Gran Colombia, of which Ecuador was part until 1830.

After several other flags, President Gabriel García Moreno restored yellow, blue and red on 26 September 1860. That date has become Flag Day in Ecuador.

The flag bears in its centre the country's coat of arms: a condor with outstretched wings towers over the Chimborazo volcano, the Guayas River and a steamship, beneath a sun surrounded by signs of the zodiac.

The elements of the Ecuadorian flag are generally interpreted as follows:

• Yellow: the sun, gold and the fertility of the farmland.
• Blue: the sky and the Pacific Ocean.
• Red: the blood shed by the heroes of independence.
• Condor: the country's power, greatness and courage.

The signs of the zodiac on the coat of arms, Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer, correspond to the months of March to June 1845, the duration of the March Revolution, which overthrew President Juan José Flores.

The Ecuadorian flag closely resembles that of Colombia: without the coat of arms, the two flags are almost identical, with the yellow band taking up half their height.

Chimborazo, shown on the coat of arms, is the point on the Earth's surface farthest from the centre of the Earth, because the planet bulges at the equator.