Samoa Flag: Meaning, History, Colors & Pictures

Samoa’s flag has a red field with a blue rectangle in the upper corner beside the hoist. Five white, five-pointed stars inside that canton represent the Southern Cross. The flag is twice as long as it is high. Its five-star design dates from 1949, before independence in 1962.

Samoa’s flag uses red, blue, and white. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade factsheet publishes red as RGB 206, 17, 38, blue as RGB 0, 43, 127, and white as RGB 255, 255, 255. These published digital values guide the downloads; the flag law itself specifies color names without numerical screen codes.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade explains red as courage, blue as freedom, and white as purity. The five stars represent the Southern Cross, connecting the design with the southern sky. These published meanings should be distinguished from the 1994 law’s schedule, which specifies the flag’s appearance and construction rather than assigning meanings to its colors.

Red represents courage in the ministry’s explanation. It forms the main field of the flag, surrounding the blue canton along its right and lower sides. Before accounting for the white stars, the red field occupies three quarters of the rectangle. The downloaded artwork uses the ministry’s published red value, hexadecimal #CE1126.

Blue represents freedom in the ministry’s account. It fills the upper quarter beside the hoist, the edge attached to a staff or halyard. In the usual front view, this canton appears at the upper left. Its published digital color is #002B7F, and it provides the background for all five white stars.

White represents purity in the ministry’s published explanation. It appears in the five stars, each drawn as a solid, regular five-pointed figure. The white is not an outline around a red center. All five stars use the same white fill, although their prescribed sizes and positions are not identical.

The current flag has five white stars, and every star has five points. Four larger stars outline the main cross, with a smaller fifth star inside the lower right part of the arrangement in the standard front view. The law identifies them with the Southern Cross; they are not a count of Samoa’s islands.

The Southern Cross is a recognizable star pattern associated with the constellation Crux in the southern sky. Samoa’s law explicitly identifies the five stars with it. Astronomical organizations describe four principal stars and a fifth often included in the pattern. The flag is a symbolic arrangement, not a calibrated map of the night sky.

The smaller fifth star is part of the five-star design introduced in 1949, following a four-star version approved in 1948. The construction schedule gives it a ten-unit ray-to-ray measurement, smaller than the other stars. It sits below and to the right of the upper central star, remaining entirely within the blue canton.

The flag’s height to length ratio is 1:2. The law describes a grid 144 units high and 288 units long, so the length is exactly twice the height. A 600-by-300 image and a 6,000-by-3,000 image therefore have the same correct proportions when width is written first.

The blue canton occupies the first quarter of the flag: half its full length and half its full height. On the statutory 288-by-144 grid, it measures 144 by 72 units. Its outer edges coincide with the top and hoist edges, while the remaining three quarters form the red field.

The schedule measures a star from one outer ray tip to the next-but-one ray tip, skipping one intervening tip. The top and hoist-side stars measure 16 units, the fly-side star 15, the bottom star 20, and the fifth star 10. These lengths are not the stars’ circumdiameters or their vertical bounding-box heights.

The top and bottom stars are centered on the vertical line through the canton’s midpoint. Their outer tips leave three-unit margins at the canton’s top and bottom. The other stars use specified offsets from its edges. The hoist-side and fly-side stars have different heights, so the arrangement must not be made perfectly symmetrical.

Begin with the statutory 288-by-144 rectangle, fill it red, and place a 144-by-72 blue canton at the upper hoist. Add five upright regular white stars using the schedule’s individual sizes and edge offsets. Calculate each center from those measurements, then scale the entire design uniformly to the required output dimensions.

A four-star flag was approved in May 1948 while Western Samoa was administered by New Zealand. A revised five-star design followed in February 1949 and continued when the country became independent on January 1, 1962. The 1994 flag and anthem law later recorded the design and related rules; it did not introduce the familiar five-star flag.

February 24, 1949 is the adoption date given in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade factsheet and Whitney Smith’s account. The original approval notice was dated February 11 and published in the February 24 Gazette. Those dates should be labeled separately; January 1, 1962 marks independence and continued use of the existing design.

The five-star flag was retained when Samoa became independent on January 1, 1962. It had already been used during the preceding trusteeship period. Independence changed the country’s political status, while the familiar red field, blue canton, and five white stars continued. The design’s 1949 adoption and the country’s 1962 independence are separate milestones.

Samoa celebrates Independence Day on June 1, although independence took effect on January 1, 1962. Government sources distinguish the historical event from its annual celebration, and Samoa’s 2026 events page lists June 1 for Independence Day. Neither the June observance nor the January independence date replaces the five-star design’s 1949 history.

Malietoa Tanumafili II and Tupua Tamasese Mea‘ole are credited with developing the 1948 design. A Samoa Observer report describes a family recollection discussed by a National University of Samoa lecturer, including the participation of their wives. This is a historical attribution to the original design, not proof that either man personally drafted every later statutory measurement.

The 1948 version had four stars, but its notice also differs in a placement instruction: the fly-side star’s nearest tip was twenty-two units from the canton’s fly edge, compared with forty-two in the 1949 schedule. Simply deleting today’s smallest star therefore does not reproduce every detail of the earlier written specification.

Avoid equal-sized stars, a missing fifth star, a misplaced canton, or a square outer rectangle. Preserve the stars’ five-pointed shape, their upright orientation, and their unequal positions. Measure star size between the specified ray tips rather than treating the number as a radius. Keep the 1948, 1949, 1962, and 1994 events distinct in captions.

The Official Flag and National Anthem of Samoa Act 1994 identifies the flag through its schedule. Its assent and commencement date is July 28, 1994. The Attorney General’s published consolidation is labeled as at December 31, 2023. It includes the design, raising and lowering rules, anthem provisions, and offenses; it also repeals the 1973 flag Act.

Section 5 of the inspected 1994 Act requires people at a public place or area where Samoa’s flag is being raised or lowered to remain still until the action is complete. It also directs drivers within or entering that area to stop their vehicles and keep them motionless for the duration of the raising or lowering.

The same 1994 Act covers both national symbols and identifies Samoa Tula‘i as the national anthem. It contains separate provisions about respecting the flag’s raising or lowering and remaining still during the anthem. The government also describes the anthem as The Banner of Freedom, whose words honor the country’s flag.

Check the official instruction for the particular mourning occasion and the responsible authority’s display guidance. The inspected 1994 Act describes the flag and rules around raising and lowering, but does not supply a complete half-mast positioning diagram or calendar. This guide therefore does not invent a lowering distance or assert that a mourning order is currently in force.

Viewed from behind a single-layer flag, the blue canton appears at the upper right when the hoist is on the viewer’s right. The entire star arrangement is horizontally reflected as well. Each upright regular star retains its own shape, but the group is not mirror-symmetric, so the small fifth star changes apparent side.

Samoa uses a red field and five solid white stars inside a blue canton. New Zealand uses a blue field, the Union Jack in its canton, and four red stars with white borders on the fly. Both reference the Southern Cross, but their star counts, colors, locations, and detailed constructions differ.

The clean SVG uses a 2,880-by-1,440 coordinate system, and the clean PNG is 6,000 by 3,000 pixels. Both preserve the flag’s two-to-one width to height ratio. Twenty-four gallery subjects each have SVG and PNG versions, while a separate 1,200-by-630 social card places the complete flag inside a larger explanatory layout.

Keep the flag’s proportions, complete canton, and measured stars intact, then agree the output size and a color proof with the printer. The ministry factsheet supplies digital values and CMYK figures, but those figures do not identify an ICC profile or certified textile standard. Printing on different materials can produce visibly different results from the same file.

The gallery provides 24 subjects as SVG and PNG pairs, covering the clean flag, colors, symbolism, canton, star measurements, dates, designers, law, and reverse view. A separate social card is also supplied. All illustrations are original vector compositions; the historical cards explain documentary evidence without claiming to be archival photographs or original government artwork.