Why don't country flags use purple?

As of 2020, there are 197 independent States in the world. Surprisingly, it is impossible to notice the purple color on the national flags of these countries.

In history, there is not a single civilization, Kingdom or Empire that would use the purple hue in state symbols.

What is the reason for such color discrimination?

Interesting story

The fact is that until the XIX century, purple pigment was very expensive. Purple clothing cost fabulous money and was available only to Royal families. No power on the planet would be able to paint all its flags and banners in this shade.

It so happened that in most countries flags began to originate in ancient times. For example, the colors of the Russian flag were mentioned since the XIII century, and the modern form of the country’s symbol took in the second half of the XVII century. Flags of some countries, such as Greece, take their history from Antiquity.

The purple hue was obtained from a purple dye. Purple was extracted from a rare shellfish family igliano. The problem was that the process was quite energy-intensive, and these animals lived only off the coast of Lebanon.

To make 70 grams of dye, it was necessary to catch 10 thousand shellfish. For comparison, to paint 1 kg of wool, you need 200 grams of organic purple dye, so you had to catch and process more than 30 thousand marine animals.

Purple flags today

The parrot on the national flag of the Dominican Republic is painted purple. Bolivia has a very bright flag that includes all the colors of the rainbow.

The capital of Japan, Tokyo, is not a separate state, but the flag of the Prefecture is a white sun on a purple cloth.