The color of your passport and what it actually means
Have you ever wondered about the color of your passport?
Maybe you have not, but surely you have experienced a huge standing queue of people waiting to get to the customs officers window. While waiting for your turn, you stare at the passports people are desperately holding in their hands. Then, you notice that the variety of colors of passports is limited. Most seem to be dark colors. Maybe, next time you are bored in the line, you can find out something about the people in the queue just by examining their passports.
Let’s briefly talk about what passports were like before. The first passports appeared to be a “medieval documents”, which had the function of allowing the holder to go through, or pass the “porte” (or gate) in the city without paying the fees. In Great Britain, the earliest surviving reference to a “safe conduct” document was found during the reign of Henry V, which was dated 1414. At that time, “pass- porte” could be issued to anyone, by the king to anyone. Moreover, King Henry V of England was the first ruler who issued “pass porte” which allowed the person traveling to avoid paying fees. Over the following centuries, this kind of passports continued to be issued in small numbers by the rulers.
It was in the early 20th century that passports, which would recognize today began to be used. The first modern British passport, the product of the British Nationality consisted of only one page, which was folded into eight and had a physical description of the person, and had a validity of 2 years. During the beginning of the first World War, countries imposed strict border controls, in order to block the entry of the enemies and prevent the exit of men, who could be the potential soldiers for the war. Then, as the peace came in 1918, most of the countries kept the border control, and passports requirement. In 1921, the famous British old blue passport was issued.
After conducting research, it turned out, that passports all over the world can be only 4 colors. They are blue, red, green and black. However, each color group has shades. Let’s talk about the factors that determine the color of the cover and what it says about the country of your passport. Rules pertaining to the size and format of the passport are issued by the international civil aviation organization ( ICAO). However, the government can also play a role in choosing the color and the design of the passport of their country.
Red
Red often indicates a communist past or present, according to Grant Bogossian, who is the vice president of the Arton Group, the company that owns the largest online passport database of the passports- Passport Index. Judge for yourself — citizens of Slovenia, China, Serbia, Russia, Latvia, Romania, Poland, and Georgia are moving around the world with red passports. Except for Croatia, shades of red (burgundy in this case) are also used by member countries of the EU (European Union). It is interesting that in 1976, when a general passport was introduced, the variants of soft lilac and brown were considered as well, but eventually were rejected. With the hope to join the EU, Turkey, Macedonia, and Albania, a few years ago, also changed the color of their passports to red.
Blue
Passports who have blue color are believed to symbolize the “new world”. The passport of Americans turned blue only in 1976. They decided to abandon the green color on the bicentennial anniversary of America — to reflect the shade of the national flag. From 1926 to 1941, US travelers had red passports, and then the covers were changed to green from 1941 to 1976. Fifteen countries in the Caribbean community also have blue passports. The South American countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, have blue passports as well, in which case the color symbolizes the connection with Mercosur — a trade agreement between these four countries.
Green
Sometimes the dominant religion of the country plays the role in determining the color of the cover of the passport. For example, Muslim countries such as Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, prefer green covers, because this is the color which signifies nature and life. Moreover, it was supposedly the favorite color of the Prophet Mohammed. Green can be found on the national flags of Iran, Mauritania, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Citizens of many African countries also impose green passports — in this case, the color indicates belonging to ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African Countries) — Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Niger, Senegal.
Black
Black passports are the rarest, according to the Passport Index. The countries are the representatives of other African countries, such as Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Botswana, Burundi, Gabon, Angola, Malawi, and others are among them. Moreover, New Zealand falls into this section because black is their national color.
Additionally, it is interesting to see that many passports have the internal pages with the pictures on them, which are not only used a decorative element but also as a protection from a fake. For example, the new Canadian passport, which was released in mind- 2013 are covered in cool colorful UV- reactive images, which can only be seen under a blacklight. People all over the world are excited about it and believe that it has potentially earned the unexpected distinction of being the coolest passport. The UV- reactive images were designed to ensure the duplicating process would be nearly impossible.
Here are some more facts about your passport you never knew about.
Canada’s temporary passport which is issued in case of the emergency has a white cover. Scandinavian nations passports have a distinct color finish in white, red or turquoise. They have the same UV- reactive images, which serve as the protective from being fake. Should a customs office, or anyone else put the passport under the UV light, the elusive Northern Lights will instantly appear.
Finland has introduced a “ sequence of the running moose” into their passport. If you start flipping the pages quickly, you will see the image of the running moose, just like in a flipbook.
Last but not least, I invite you to have a look at the world map, which is painted according to the color of each country’s passport by Passport Index.
As a short conclusion, I should say that it will be very interesting and exciting to see how passports will change in the coming years.
