From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Flag of Christmas Island

Australian territorial flag

Summary

Australian territorial flag

Field	Value
Name	Christmas Island
Image	Flag of Christmas Island.svg
Use	110000
Symbol
Proportion	1:2
Adoption
Design	Blue and green diagonal bicolour charged with a southern cross of four seven-pointed white stars and one smaller five-pointed white star on the blue half, a golden bosun bird in gold on the green half, and a gold circle in the centre containing the shape of the island in green
Designer	Tony Couch

The flag of Christmas Island was adopted on 26 January 2002. It was unofficially adopted in 1986 after being chosen the winner in a competition for a flag for the territory. It was designed by Tony Couch of Sydney, Australia.

Design

The flag of Christmas Island consists of a green and blue background, split from the top left corner to the bottom right. These colours are intended to represent the land and sea respectively. The Southern Cross constellation appears in the bottom left of the flag similar to the flag of Australia. In the top right, the golden bosun bird (Phaethon lepturus fulvus, one of six subspecies of the white-tailed tropicbird) appears. It is considered to be a symbol of the Island. The last motif appears in the centre of the flag on a golden disc is the map of the island in green. The disc itself was originally only included to offset the green colour of the map, but has become linked to the mining industry.

History

Creation

In 1986, the Christmas Island Assembly announced a competition to design both a flag and a coat of arms for the territory. There was a prize fund of $100, and some 69 entries were submitted. The winning submission was created by Tony Couch, a resident of Sydney who had previously worked on Christmas Island. The new flag was announced on 14 April 1986, by the Christmas Island Assembly.

Implementation

The first attempt to make the flag official occurred in 1995 when the Minister of the Islands at the time took the view that implementation could take place on Australia Day 1996 via a formal announcement by the Administrator rather than an amendment to the Christmas Island Act 1958. Although this was agreed, the declaration never took place.

Subsequently, Christmas Island official Gary Dunt revived the issue in 2001. The website of the Shire of Christmas island in 2013 claimed that the administrator of the territory, Bill Taylor, officially declared the flag official on 26 January 2002. Councillor Mariam Kawi accepted the flag as a representative of the Shire of Christmas Island. However, the Australian Government as of 2025 states that the flag is "used in the community but [has] not been formally adopted".

References

(21 June 2013). "The Flag of the Territory of Christmas Island". Shire of Christmas Island.
"Birds of Christmas Island". Christmas Island Tourism Association.
"The Flag of Christmas Island".
. (1 February 2002). ["Flag of Christmas Island"](http://hoshie.mozfaq.org/Xmas-island-flag.pdf). *The Islander*.
Crouch, Alex. (2015-12-23). "Christmas Island Flag".
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. (2022). "Australian flags". [[Australian Government]].

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

2002-establishments-in-australia flags-introduced-in-1986 flags-of-australian-states-and-territories flags-of-christmas-island southern-cross-flags flags-adopted-through-competition flags-displaying-animals flags-of-dependent-territories

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Flag of Christmas Island — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report