为什么几乎没有国家的国旗是紫色的？｜Why Most National Flags Don’t Have Purple

往下拉阅读中文版。

Have you ever noticed that most flags around the world don’t have purple on them? Red, blue, green – these colors are everywhere. But purple? Almost nowhere.

You might think: “But purple is such a cool color! It’s popular, it looks fancy. Why wouldn’t countries want to use it on their flags?”

Here’s the surprising reason: purple used to be ridiculously expensive.

A Color for Kings – Only

A long time ago, before we had machines to make colorful dyes, people had to get color from nature. Purple came from a tiny sea snail found in the waters near a city called Tyre (in today’s Lebanon). To make just one gram of purple dye, they needed to crush over 10,000 snails. Yep, that’s not a typo.

So naturally, purple became the color of royalty. Only kings, queens, and emperors could afford it. Even Queen Elizabeth I of England said, “No one but my family wears purple!”

Even powerful Roman emperors sometimes couldn’t afford it. One of them, Emperor Aurelian, told his wife she couldn’t have a purple shawl—because it cost three times its weight in gold!

So Why Isn’t It On Flags?

Because it was so expensive, no country could afford to put purple on its flag. Imagine needing a mountain of gold just to make one flag! So they stuck with cheaper colors like red and blue.

Then Everything Changed...

In 1856, a young English chemist named William Perkin accidentally invented a synthetic purple dye while trying to make medicine. Suddenly, purple became cheap and easy to make. Everyone could wear it—not just royalty.

But by then, most countries had already chosen their flag designs, and they stuck with tradition.

A Few Modern Exceptions

Today, a few modern flags, like those of Dominica and Nicaragua, do have a bit of purple. But it’s still super rare.

So the next time you see a rainbow of flags at the Olympics, you’ll know why purple is missing from most of them. It’s not because people don’t like purple - it’s because history made it special (and super pricey).

你有没有注意到，大多数国家的国旗上都有红色、蓝色、绿色……但几乎看不到紫色？你可能会想：“紫色不是很好看吗？为什么没人用呢？”

其实，原因很简单：以前紫色太贵了！贵到离谱！

紫色 = 王室专属

在很久以前，还没有现代化染料的时候，人们要从大自然里提取颜色。紫色的染料来自一种非常小的海螺，这种海螺只在地中海靠近今天黎巴嫩的城市“泰尔”附近才能找到。而且，要制作1克紫色染料，需要上万个小海螺！是不是有点夸张？

所以紫色就成了皇室的专属色。只有国王、皇后、皇帝才穿得起。英国的伊丽莎白一世甚至下令：除了她的家族，别人都不准穿紫色！甚至有些罗马皇帝也买不起紫色衣服。比如奥勒良皇帝就不让他的妻子买紫色丝巾，因为那价格相当于三倍黄金的重量！

那为什么国旗不选紫色？

你想啊，如果一面国旗要用那么贵的染料，那得花多少钱？所以大家就选了便宜又好看的颜色，比如红色、蓝色。

后来发生了什么？

一直到1856年，一个18岁的英国化学家威廉·珀金在做实验时意外发明了一种人工紫色染料。从此，紫色变便宜了，人人都能穿。但那个时候，各国的国旗早就设计好了，也不太会轻易更改。

今天呢？

现在有几个国家，比如多米尼克和尼加拉瓜，在国旗上用了少量紫色。但依然非常少见。

所以下次看到各种国家的国旗时，你就知道为什么几乎没有紫色了。这不是因为大家不喜欢它，而是因为紫色曾经太贵太特别了！