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Gay Pride/Rainbow Flag - Variations with order and number of stripes

Sexual Orientation Flags

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Five-striped variations
Six-striped variations
Seven-striped variations

See also:

Five-striped variations

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 26 June 2015

At least one of the flags seen in Mumbai, India, on 16 August 2009 did replace red and orange stripes with a single orange-red stripe, while keeping the unusual order of other colors, as shown here. The reason for this is unclear, since the usual six-striped rainbow flag is not unknown in India, as some of the above sources reveal.
Tomislav Todorovic, 26 June 2015

Six-striped variations

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

Gay Pride flags sometimes have the rainbow colors in "unordered" pattern - that is, not following the order in which they naturally appear within the rainbow. One of the best known examples is from the Madrid Pride 2008. The pattern (top-down) is: blue, violet, red, orange, yellow, green. This photo has been much reproduced on the Web, like here. It is worth noting that it also shows an ordinary rainbow flag, hoisted on a building in background - indeed, most rainbow flags used at the event were such, as revealed by the selection of photos from Wikimedia .
Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

Flags with a different color pattern were used at the Madrid Pride / Europride 2007. They differed from the ordinary rainbow flags only in the positions of blue and violet colors, which were swapped here. It is difficult to say which side was meant to be up - note the wall decoration on the house in the right-hand part of the photo, with violet/purple at the top - but since the flags with red at the top prevail, it may be assumed that the case was the same here. The same flag, with red at the top, was used in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, at the Gay Pride Parade in 2010 (image). Although the color shades seem to differ here, especially those of violet and blue, which look more like indigo and turquoise, respectively, the pattern is clearly the same.
Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

A much more "unordered" pattern than the previous two was seen at a photo from Mexico City (link broken). There, the pattern (top-down) was: blue, violet, orange, yellow, red, green.
Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

The flags with "unordered" pattern are actually not new: they were used in the USA in early 1990's, as revealed by this photo from San Diego, California, which was taken in 1992 or 1993. Here, along with an ordinary rainbow flag with red at the top, a flag is shown with the following pattern: green, blue, violet, red, orange, yellow. The color shades look rather dark, partly perhaps due to the picture taking conditions, and partly perhaps due to the preservation condition of the original photo which, having been created in early 1990's, was almost certainly scanned before posting to the Web, but the use of darker color shades seems not to be unknown in the USA.
Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 26 June 2015

Another variant, which also displays a significant variation of color shades, was seen in Mumbai, India, on 16 August 2009. Its photos, which can be found here, here, here, and here, reveal that blue and violet are replaced with dark blue (slightly inclining towards indigo) and light blue, respectively. Red is also almost indistinguishable from orange - usually, it is the combined size of two stripes, being twice as big as that of any other color, that reveals that two colors are meant to be there.
Tomislav Todorovic, 26 June 2015

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 1 July 2015

Another six-striped flag was seen in New Delhi on 2009-07-02. The color pattern was: red, orange, yellow, pink (instead of violet or purple), blue and green. Red, orange and yellow were darker and blue and green were lighter than on most rainbow flags.
Tomislav Todorovic, 1 July 2015

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 29 March 2016

Another six-striped variant is shown on a photo used by the Left Block, political party from Portugal in their campaign for legalization of same-sex marriages. That photo can be found here. The color pattern is: blue, violet, green, yellow, orange, red.
Tomislav Todorovic, 29 March 2016

Seven-striped variations

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

Not only the six-colored, but also the seven-colored gay rainbow flags may have the "unordered" patterns. One such flag was hoisted at the building of Extremadura regional government, in the city of Badajoz, Spain, in June 2014, just before the International LGBT Pride Day, as reported here and here. On this flag, violet and blue have had the places swapped and turquoise was more like the sky blue. Having had seven stripes, just like the Inca flag, the flag was mistaken for it in the news reports, but when compared with the six-colored flag, it was compared with an "unordered" variant. However, the use of seven-colored gay rainbow flags is not unknown to Spain, as they were used at the Madrid Pride / Europride 2007 and this "unordered" flag is clearly another one, not an Inca flag.
Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

An earlier example of the use of such flags is from the Taiwan Pride 2005. There, the pattern was: blue, turquoise, violet, green, yellow, orange, red. This is the same pattern as one of the most common variants of Italian peace flag but this flag's transparency in the photo reveals that there seems to be no inscription, so it is clearly another gay rainbow flag.
Tomislav Todorovic, 5 October 2014

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 1 July 2015

Another seven striped variant, with purple at the top and swapped places of dark and light blue (instead of indigo and turquoise) was seen in Chennai, India, at the Chennai Rainbow Pride 2012, as shown here, and again at the rally held for the International Day against Homophobia/Transphobia. Photo from the event can be seen here (image).
Tomislav Todorovic, 1 July 2015

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 1 July 2015

Some variants of "unordered" seven-striped flags replace indigo and turquoise stripes with a single blue stripe, while a pink stripe is added between yellow and green. Such flags, with red at the top, were used at Chennai Rainbow Pride 2011, as shown here, and again at Chennai Rainbow Pride 2012, with the photos available here and here, and Chennai Rainbow Pride 2013, as shown here.
Tomislav Todorovic, 1 July 2015

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 1 July 2015

Flags with the reversed color order (purple at the top) were used at Chennai Rainbow Pride 2014, with the photos available here and here.
Tomislav Todorovic, 1 July 2015

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 30 August 2015

Another seven-striped variant with pink and single blue stripes was seen at the annual Gay Pride in Entebbe, Uganda on 2015-08-08, as seen here, here and here. The color pattern was: red, orange, pink, green, yellow, blue, purple. While red and pink were rather dark, more than typically used, blue was very light - unusually light for the gay pride flags.
Tomislav Todorovic, 30 August 2015