# Australian Colors?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-colors/34560>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 26, 2000, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-colors/34560 "2000-09-26T05:08:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2000, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-colors/34560/1 "2000-09-26T05:08:11Z")

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What’s up with Australia and green and yellow? I always thought that national colors were those represented a country’s flag, but the Australian flag is red, white and blue. So why are all the Aussies decked out in green and yellow?

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**Author:** ![PerfectDark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ebca7d/32.png) [@PerfectDark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PerfectDark)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2000, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-colors/34560/2 "2000-09-26T05:17:01Z")

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Have you noticed how many flags have Red, White and Blue… more than one!!! That’s why Australia had to pick 2 or more colours that nobody else was using… They picked green and gold.

Maybe someone else can shed some light on why they chose Green and Gold?

**PerfectDark**

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**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2000, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-colors/34560/3 "2000-09-26T05:21:34Z")

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I don’t know where the yellow/green came from, but the blue/red/white is extremely common - U.S., France, U.K., Russia, New Zealand (?) and a few other major countries have the exact color scheme. Some more have a subset of those three colors (Japan, Canada, Switzerland, etc.) I can understand using other colors to distinguish themselves.

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**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2000, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-colors/34560/4 "2000-09-26T05:32:18Z")

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Green and gold are the colours of the wattle tree. The colours have been used for as long as I can remember.

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2000, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-colors/34560/5 "2000-09-26T06:01:39Z")

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The aussies also have a green flag with a yellow kangaroo on it that they use sometimes.