Cuba vs. Puerto Rico: Flag Comparison
Cuba and Puerto Rico share an identical five-stripe, hoist-triangle, and lone-star layout because Puerto Rico's 1895 flag was intentionally designed by inverting the red and blue of Cuba's 1849 flag.
How to tell Cuba and Puerto Rico apart at a glance
- Check the hoist triangle and stripes: Cuba has a RED triangle and BLUE-and-white stripes; Puerto Rico has a BLUE triangle and RED-and-white stripes.
- Compare the aspect ratio: Cuba's statutory flag is a long 1:2 rectangle, whereas Puerto Rico's flag is a shorter 2:3 rectangle.
Side-by-side structural comparison
| Attribute | Cuba | Puerto Rico |
|---|---|---|
| Aspect ratio | 1:2 (1:2) | 2:3 (2:3) |
| Layout & orientation | horizontal hoist triangle | horizontal hoist triangle |
| Band / color sequence | blue · white · blue · white · blue | red · white · red · white · red |
| Official color specs | Turquí Blue (Azul Turquí) (Pantone 280 C); White (Blanco) (statute-named); Crimson Red (Rojo) (Pantone 186 C) | Red (Rojo) (statute-named); White (Blanco) (statute-named); Royal / Sky Blue (Azul) (statute-named) |
| Official adoption | 1902-05-20 | 1952-07-24 |
| Region | Caribbean | Caribbean |
| Visual similarity score | 86/100 (Layout 35/35 · Colors 17.8/25 · Symbols 20/20 · Ratio 3.3/10 · Geometry 10/10) | |
Why these two flags look alike
Cuba's flag was designed in New York City in June 1849 by Venezuelan general Narciso López and Cuban poet Miguel Teurbe Tolón, combining five alternating blue and white horizontal stripes with a red equilateral hoist triangle and a white lone star.
Forty-six years later, on 22 December 1895, fifty-nine Puerto Rican independence exiles affiliated with the Puerto Rican Section of the Cuban Revolutionary Party met at Chimney Corner Hall in Manhattan and adopted the exact same geometric pattern with the red and blue swapped—honoring the joint Caribbean independence movement celebrated in Lola Rodríguez de Tió's poem as 'of one bird the two wings.'
Today, the pair remains one of the clearest examples of deliberate color counterchange in world vexillology, further distinguished in official use by Cuba's elongated 1:2 proportion versus Puerto Rico's 2:3 proportion.
Explore each flag in detail
Read the complete statutory specification, color table, and historical timeline on the Flag of Cuba page or the Flag of Puerto Rico page, or return to all flag comparisons.