Flag: Guinea-Bissau Emoji

The flag of Guinea-Bissau: a red vertical stripe on the left bearing a black star (for African unity), with yellow (top) and green (bottom) horizontal stripes on the right. The design comes directly from the flag of the PAIGC, the liberation movement that fought for independence from Portugal.

Guinea-Bissau is a small West African nation of about 2 million people with a disproportionately wild history. Its independence war (1963-1974) was so devastating to Portugal that it contributed to the fall of Portugal's own dictatorship. The country has survived nine coups since independence. The UN labeled it Africa's first 'narco-state' in 2008 because South American cartels use its 88-island archipelago to transship cocaine. And through it all, 85% of the population depends on a single crop: cashew nuts.

🇬🇼 is extremely rare in everyday digital communication. It shows up among the Bissau-Guinean diaspora (mainly in Portugal and France), during Guinea-Bissau's Carnival celebrations in February, and occasionally in discussions about West African politics, narco-trafficking, or Lusophone Africa.

The flag also appears in football contexts. Guinea-Bissau qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in 2017, and 🇬🇼 flooded social media in a way the country had never experienced before. The Djurtus (wild dogs, the national team's nickname) have since become a regular AFCON presence.

Guinea-Bissau's flag was adopted on September 24, 1973, when the country unilaterally declared independence from Portugal. The flag is based on the banner of the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), the movement that fought one of Africa's most successful liberation wars.

The PAIGC was founded in 1956 by Amílcar Cabral, a Bissau-Guinean and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer who became one of Africa's most respected revolutionary thinkers. From 1963, Cabral led a guerrilla war against the Portuguese that became so costly it was called 'Portugal's Vietnam.' By the early 1970s, the PAIGC controlled most of the countryside.

Cabral was assassinated on January 20, 1973, just eight months before independence. His brother Luís became the new nation's first president. The war's toll on Portugal was so severe that it contributed directly to the Carnation Revolution of April 1974, which toppled Portugal's 48-year dictatorship. A small West African nation's fight for freedom helped end a European dictatorship.

Since independence, Guinea-Bissau has endured nine coups or coup attempts. No president completed a full term until June 2019. The discovery that South American drug cartels were routing cocaine through the country's Bijagós archipelago earned it the UN's 'narco-state' label in 2008. 🇬🇼 was added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.

• •Amílcar Cabral is widely regarded as one of Africa's greatest anti-colonial thinkers. He was assassinated on January 20, 1973, just eight months before the country he'd fought for declared independence.
• •Guinea-Bissau's independence war was so punishing to Portugal that it directly contributed to the Carnation Revolution of 1974, which ended 48 years of Portuguese dictatorship. A colony's war of liberation toppled the colonizer's government.
• •The country has had nine coups or coup attempts since independence in 1974. No president completed a full term until 2019.
• •About 85% of Guinea-Bissau's population depends on cashew farming, and cashews account for 90% of exports. It's one of the most single-crop-dependent economies on Earth.
• •Guinea-Bissau Creole (Kriyol) is spoken by over 90% of the population and is the real lingua franca, though Portuguese is the official language. Fewer than 15% speak Portuguese as a first language.

• •🇬🇼 is a regional indicator sequence: U+1F1ECU+1F1EC (G) + U+1F1FCU+1F1FC (W). ISO code: GWGW.
• •Don't confuse 🇬🇼 (Guinea-Bissau, GW) with 🇬🇳 (Guinea, GN) or 🇬🇶 (Equatorial Guinea, GQ). Three different countries with 'Guinea' in the name.

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