We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
Five interlaced rings of equal size, the emblem of the Olympic Movement.
Also known as: Five rings
Five rings — blue, yellow, black, green and red — interlaced in two rows on a white field. The Olympic Charter defines the design exactly and reserves it to the IOC, which is why it appears so rarely outside official use.
The Olympic symbol, defined by Rule 8 of the Olympic Charter as five interlaced rings of equal dimensions in blue, yellow, black, green and red, used alone in one or in five colours.
Expresses the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from around the world, as Pierre de Coubertin described it when he designed the emblem in 1913.
No individual ring is assigned to any particular continent. The frequent claim that a specific colour stands for a specific continent is not part of the design and the IOC does not make it.
Widely taught and widely repeated, but the colours were chosen so that every national flag of the time contained at least one of them, not to map onto continents individually.
Five rings of equal size interlaced in two rows — three above, two below — the upper row blue, black and red from the left, the lower row yellow and green.
Both are marks of international sporting governance, defined by the body that runs the competition rather than by general usage.