Ever Wondered Why Indian Passports Are Blue? Here’s All You Need To Know.

In the globalised world of today, I’m pretty sure most of us has a passport. Moreover, some of us may have noticed our foreign friends with passports of varying colours. Well, it turns out, passports come in four specific colours, and each country has a reason for selecting one.

1. Blue

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Passports with a blue cover symbolise the ‘new world’. India has a blue passport along with fifteen countries from the Carribean. Even the United changed its passport colour from Red to Blue in 1976.  In South America, Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina have blue passports in order to indicate a connection with Mercousur, a trade union.

 

2. Red

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Red is the most common passport colour. It is primarily chosen by countries who have had a communist connection. These include Slovenia, China, Serbia, Latvia, Russia, Romania, Poland and Georgia. In addition, countries who are members of the European Union also have passports in reds or shades of red like burgundy. Even those countries interested in joining the EU like Turkey, Albania and Macedonia have switched to a burgundy passport.

 

3. Green

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Green passport covers are primarily chosen by nations with a Muslim majority such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Morocco. It’s said that green was Prophet Mohammed’s favourite colour and symbolised life and nature. Several West African nations like Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal have travel documents in shades of green. However, in these cases, the colour indicates that they belong to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

 

4. Black

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Black seems to be the rarest of colours for passports. It is primarily used by some African countries including Botswana, Brunei, Gabon, Angola, Malawi and Zambia. Apart from these New Zealand also has a black passport since it’s the country’s national colour.

 

If you feel we’ve missed a specific country of interest to you, here’s a world map with all the countries and their passport colours:

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So the next time you go out on an international adventure to satiate your wanderlust, you’ll have a pretty neat conversation starter.

Unless there’s beer. In that case, let the beer do the talking. 😛

Source: Mirror

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