Zambia has flown the same flag since the day it became independent, and apart from one adjustment to the shade of green it looks now much as it did in 1964.
From Northern Rhodesia to Zambia
The flag was adopted on October 24, 1964, the day the country became independent of Britain. Before that, as Northern Rhodesia, it had flown a British colonial flag with the Union Jack on it. A national competition was held in the run-up to independence to find a replacement, and the design was drawn by Gabriel Ellison, an artist who also held a government post. Putting nothing British on the new flag was part of the point.
The eagle and the three stripes
Most of the flag is green, for Zambia's vegetation and natural resources. The design sits at the fly end: a block of three vertical stripes in red, black, and orange, with an orange eagle in flight above them.
Red is for the struggle for freedom and the sacrifices it cost. Black is for the people of Zambia and its various ethnic groups. Orange is for mineral wealth, above all copper, which has underwritten much of the economy. The eagle stands for strength and for the ability to rise above the country's problems.
Where the flag is flown
The flag flies over government buildings and at public events, and protocol has it raised at sunrise and lowered at sunset. Zambian embassies and missions abroad use it, and there are adapted versions for military and civil ensigns. At home it turns up most often around Independence Day, and the eagle on its own has become a common motif on sports kit and other paraphernalia.
Green fields and local wildlife appear on a number of other African flags, part of a shared post-independence vocabulary, though the particular combination here belongs to Zambia alone.