Somalia

Last modified: 2000-01-21 by phil nelson
Keywords: somalia | star: white | crescent: points to fly | mogadiscio |
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by Steve Stringfellow, 5-SEP-1996
Flag adopted 1954-OCT-12, coat of arms adopted 1956-OCT-10

• Somalia
• 1576 map image

• Somalialand
• Puntland

Somalia adopted light blue flag in honour of the UNO that has the control until the independence. The star has 5 points one for each branch of Somalis: Issas of Djibuti), Somali of Ethiopia, Issak of Somaliland, Somalis of old Italian Somalia and North Kenia Somalis.
Jaume Ollé 27 July 1999

The five points of the Somali flag represents simple the previous colonial area where mostly Somali speaking people live and lived.
Mohamed Aden, 13 September 1999

by Jorge Candeias

The above image is from a map made by Fernão Vaz Dourado in 1576. The flag is placed in southern Somalia, near the place where today lies Mogadiscio. A triangular flag, dark red over dark yellow, with a white crescent at the hoist, vertically centered.
Jorge Candeias, 01 September 1999

I don't have any definite information as to the identity of the cities whose flags were shown on the chart, but The New Atlas of African History by G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville provides some possibilities. It shows the leading ports on the Indian Ocean shore of Africa during the 15th and 16th centuries, the above could be Mogadishu
Edward Smith, 01 September 1999

By the time the Portuguese arrived for the first time on the East African coast there was trade going on by Arabs (or Moors, as the Portuguese called them) and Indians, mainly from Gujarat. It is quite possible, that several flags belong to Arabs or Gujaratis.

There are several Portuguese accounts of the East African coast; G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville selected some in 'The East African Coast', selected documents from the first to the earlier nineteenth century, 1962. A lot of places are named in that book. Of special interest is Duarte Barbosa's account of the East Coast, c. 1517-18. It has no info on flags, just on places/regions. From South to North (well, about):

• Çofala - Sofala
• The great kingdom of Benametapa (Monomotapa)
• Zimbaoche (Great Zimbabwe) - on the road from C,ofala to the Cape of Good Hope
• Cuama river
• Angoya, a very great town of Moors
• Moçambique, a Moorish town
• Quiloa, an island with a Moorish town
• Mombaça, a town on an isle, whose king is a Moor
• Melinde, pertaining to the Moors with a Moorish king
• The Island of Sam Lourenço (Madagascar), an island with many kings
• Pemba, Mamfia and Zinzibar, three islands
• Patee and Lemon (Lamu)

Fernão Vaz Dourado, born at Diu in 1520, worked in Goa until 1580; he was doubtless the 'expert master of navigation in Goa' by whom Linschoten's Amsterdam publisher, Cornelis Claesz, secured a 'map of Asia' about 1592. (Skelton, 'Explorers' Maps', 1958, p. 159)
Jarig Bakker, 01 September 1999