Ever wondered why India’s passport is blue in color while that of Pakistan is green and China’s is red?
Well, we all love traveling and almost every single one of us dreams about traveling the World with our loved ones or friends someday, but does the travel bug inside you know why different countries sport certain different colors of passports?
This is why I decided to write an informative article to help you figure out why and what does the color of your passport represent.
First things first, there are only four primary passport colors in the world. Every country has the choice and its own reasons to choose one of these colors.
Let’s see what these four colors are and the reasons why some countries choose one color over the others.
Different Passport Colors:
1. Red (Burgundy)
2. Blue
3. Green
4. Black
These are the four primary colors and every passport in this world has one of these four colors. Let us study what these different colors symbolize and how countries choose the color of their passports.
1. Red
Red is the most common passport color. A red colored passport cover is often chosen by countries with a historical or current communist system. The citizens of countries like China, Russia, Slovenia, Serbia, Poland, Georgia, and Romania all have red colored passports. The member nations of the European Union (EU) like France, Germany, and Switzerland etc except Croatia all have either burgundy or other shades of red color covers on their passports.
Countries like Turkey, Macedonia, and Albania, which are interest in becoming a member of the European Union have also adopted and changed the color of their passport to color red a few years ago.
Adding to the long list of red/burgundy passport adopters is the Andean Community of Nations — Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru who also have burgundy passports.
2. Blue
The second most common color for passports is the color blue. The blue cover on a passport symbolizes the “new world”. Within the block of South American countries, the blue passport cover symbolizes the connection with Mercosur – a trade union. This includes South American countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Venezuela is an exception here. Although it belongs to the Mercosur union, the passport cover color of its citizens is red.
More so, 15 Caribbean countries have blue passports. Countries like India, Australia and some European and African countries also have a blue colored passport for their citizens. Even the citizens of United States have a blue colored passport.
3. Green
Most Muslim countries like Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan etc have adopted a green passport. Green is considered to be the favorite color of Prophet Muhammad and also a symbol of nature and life. Many African countries that belong to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have their travel documents in different shades of the green color. Members of ECOWAS include countries like Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal.
4. Black
The rarest passports are those with black covers. These can be found among the citizens of some African countries — Botswana, Zambia, Burundi, Gabon, Angola, Chad, Congo, Malawi, and others. Citizens of New Zealand also have black passport covers, because black is the country’s national color. The citizens of Greenland have a black colored passport as well.
So now you know what the four primary colors of all the citizen passports in the world are and what these colors symbolize. India has a navy blue color passport, what’s the color of your passport?
Blog by Nidhi Shah (Co-founder Holiday Turn)