Palmyra Atoll

The unofficial flag of Palmyra Atoll is a horizontal tricolor in red, blue and yellow with a yellow rising sun in the upper lane.

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The original flag used during World War II was adopted in 1941. The upper red band represented the sky and is larger than the other two bands, the median blue band represents the Pacific Ocean and is the same width as the lower yellow band representing a beach in the atoll; the yellow semicircle represented the sun rising on the horizon. The beach is an idealized image of the atoll, in reality, the vegetation descends directly to the ocean and the beaches are not visible on the atoll. As for the sun, it is supposed to represent a Japanese sun rising or setting, but the flag represents a yellow sun while on the Japanese flag, the sun is red.

The current unofficial flag of Palmyra Atoll was adopted in 2001 and resembles the one used during World War II, but redesigned to make it more realistic. The red represents the sky of a rising or setting sun, the blue represents the Pacific Ocean, the yellow represents the beach and the three-quarters of a circle represents the rising or setting sun. The differences with the old flag are the sun, which was raised to bring it out a little more of the water, and the beach, which was reduced to leave more room for the strip representing the sky. The colors changed slightly, with a yellow drifting more on gold and the sky blue becoming a navy blue. Like the old flag, it is in a 2:3 ratio.

Palmyra Atoll

Symbolism[]

Historical flags[]

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