Green, red, and yellow are called African colors, and Ghana was the second country in modern Africa to used the three colors, and as for design, the horizontally divided design was chosen, following the former controlling power. In 1961, when a federal nation was established together with the British colonial Southern Cameroon, two stars that each represented the former French colonial Cameroon and the former British colonial Cameroon were used. However the federal nation was abolished in 1972, and three years from then, the number of stars was changed to one.