Cuba Flags – Cuban Flag, Che Guevara Flag & Bunting

The Cuban flag: the Lone Star

The flag of Cuba, La Estrella Solitaria, has five horizontal stripes, three blue and two white, with a red equilateral triangle at the hoist carrying a single white five-pointed star. It was designed in 1849 by Narciso López and the poet Miguel Teurbe Tolón while in exile in New York, was flown in the uprisings against Spanish rule, and became the flag of the independent republic on 20 May 1902. The three blue stripes are usually explained as the three military departments into which Spain divided the island, the white stripes as the purity of the independence cause, the red triangle as the blood shed for it and the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, and the star as the new state. The Puerto Rican flag was drawn from the same design with the colours reversed. Our Cuba flag is printed in the 1:2 proportion with the triangle’s point reaching exactly to the middle stripe, which is where cheaper prints tend to go wrong.

Salsa nights, 20 May and the ring

In Britain the Cuban flag belongs first to the bar and the dance floor: salsa and bachata nights, rum and cigar bars, Havana-themed parties and the Buena Vista-style club nights in London, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow all hang it, often with the Che Guevara flag alongside. The Cuban community itself marks 20 May, the anniversary of the 1902 republic, with 1 January, the Triumph of the Revolution, and 26 July, the date of the 1953 Moncada attack, as the state holidays in Cuba. In sport Cuba means boxing above all, with a long run of Olympic champions, then baseball, volleyball and athletics, so the flag shows up at amateur boxing shows and the Olympics every four years.

Che Guevara and the 26 July Movement

The Che Guevara (Cuba) flag places the Korda portrait on a red field in 3ft x 2ft, 5ft x 3ft and 8ft x 5ft, the standard decoration for a Cuban bar or a student wall, and the Cuba July Movement M-26-7 flag is the red-and-black diagonal with the M-26-7 lettering of the movement that took power in 1959, which appears alongside the national flag at state events in Cuba. Both are stocked as straightforward printed flags.

Cuba flag sizes and grades

5ft x 3ft for a bar wall, a pole or a party backdrop; 3ft x 2ft for a smaller wall, a booth or a short pole; 8ft x 5ft for a stage or a large fixed flagpole; 20x12in for a car or hand pole. Flagtex is a printed woven polyester for indoor and short-term outdoor use; DuraFlag is the heavier knitted polyester with double-stitched hems for a pole in use all year. Both have a sewn header and brass eyelets, with clips or rope and toggle available on the DuraFlag.

Cuba bunting

Cuba bunting is one of the fuller bunting ranges: rectangle or triangle pennants in 3m, 5m, 9m and 20m lengths, sewn to a tape in weatherproof polyester. A 20m run will dress a whole salsa club or a street party, a 3m length a cocktail bar back-shelf. Plain blue, white and red from the bunting range mix in for a bigger room.

Hand flags and table flags

Cuba hand flags on wooden sticks come in 9x6in and 18x12in for dance nights, boxing shows and school projects. The Cuba table flag is a 6x4in desk flag on a base for a restaurant table or an office, and the large wooden table flag at 18x12in suits a bar counter. Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and the rest of the Caribbean are under world flags.

Cuban flag FAQs

Popular in this collection

• Cuba Flag (20x12in to 8x5ft, 2 grades)from £6.99
• Cuba Bunting (3m to 20m, rectangle or triangle)from £9.98
• Che Guevara (Cuba) Flagfrom £6.99
• Cuba July Movement M-26-7 Flag£7.99
• Cuba Hand Flagsfrom £5.99
• Cuba Table Flag with Basefrom £1.98