Use | National flag and ensign |
---|---|
Proportion | 2:3 |
Adopted | 21 March 1990 |
Design | A white-edged red diagonal band radiating from the lower hoist-side corner. The upper triangle is blue, charged with a gold sun with 12 triangular rays and the lower triangle is green. |
Designed by | Theo Jankowski Don Stevenson Ortrud Clay |
Use | Naval jack |
Design | A white field with the national flag in the canton. |
The flag of Namibia consists of a red bend edged in two white bands with a blue upper triangle charged with an 12-ray yellow sun and green lower triangle.
The flag was adopted on 21 March 1990 upon independence from South Africa. During apartheid rule, it used the South African orange-white-blue tricolor.
The National Symbols Sub-Committee received 870 entries for the national flag. Six designs were short-listed; this was reduced to three, those of three Namibians – Theo Jankowski of Rehoboth, Don Stevenson [1] of Windhoek and Ortrud Clay of Lüderitz. These three designs were combined to form the Namibia national flag, adopted unanimously on 2 February 1990 by the Constituent Assembly. The three designers were publicly acknowledged by judge Hans Berker, the chairman of the subcommittee, at the unveiling ceremony on 9 March 1990. [2] [ dubious – discuss ]
However, two other claims were made – South African Frederick Brownell claimed that he had designed the flag in his role as South African State Herald. [3] The other claimant was Briton Roy Allen, who claimed that the flag design was the result of a competition run by Hannes Smith of the Windhoek Observer , and that he had won. [4]
It is one of the few national flags incorporating a diagonal line, with other examples including the DR Congo, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, and Brunei.
The colours of the Namibian flag are described in the Government Gazette. [5] This document also details construction of the Presidential flag. The tone or specific shade for white has not been specified.
Color model | Blue | Yellow gold | Green | Red |
---|---|---|---|---|
Pantone | 294 C | 116 C | 347 C | 186 C |
Coates SP | 5 809 | 1 802 | 65 | 35 |
RGB [6] | 0, 47, 108 (#002F6C) | 255, 205, 0 (#FFCD00) | 0, 154, 68 (#009A44) | 200, 16, 46 (#C8102E) |
The chairman explained the symbolism of the flag's colours as follows: [3]
The flag has a white-edged red diagonal band radiating diagonally from the lower hoist-side corner. The upper triangle is blue with a gold sun with 12 triangular rays and the lower triangle is green.
Blazon:Per bend sinister Azure and Vert, a bend sinister Gules fimbriated Argent and in dexter chief a Sun with twelve straight rays Or charged with an annulet Azure.
Some of the bantustans established by South Africa during its period of administering South West Africa had adopted their own distinctive flags whilst others used the flag of South Africa.
South West Africa was a territory under South African administration from 1915 to 1966, and under South African occupation from 1966 to 1990. Renamed Namibia by the United Nations in 1968, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990.
The history of Namibia has passed through several distinct stages from being colonised in the late nineteenth century to Namibia's independence on 21 March 1990.
The national flag of South Africa was designed in March 1994 and adopted on 27 April 1994, during South Africa's 1994 general election, to replace the previous flag used from 1928–1994.
The coat of arms of the Philippines features the eight-rayed sun of the Philippines with each ray representing the eight provinces which were placed under martial law by Governor-General Ramón Blanco Sr. during the Philippine Revolution, and the three five-pointed stars representing the three major island groups of Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
Tinctures are the colours, metals, and furs used in heraldry. Nine tinctures are in common use: two metals, or and argent ; the colours gules (red), azure (blue), vert (green), sable (black), and purpure (purple); and the furs ermine, which represents the winter fur of a stoat, and vair, which represents the fur of a red squirrel. The use of other tinctures varies depending on the time period and heraldic tradition in question.
The national flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina contains a medium blue field with a yellow right triangle separating said field, and there are seven full five-pointed white stars and two half stars top and bottom along the hypotenuse of the triangle.
The national flag of Tanzania consists of a Gold-edged black bend, divided diagonally from the lower hoist-side corner, with a green upper triangle and light blue lower triangle. Adopted in 1964 to replace the individual flags of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, it has been the flag of the United Republic of Tanzania since the two states merged that year. The design of the present flag incorporates the elements from the two former flags. It is one of a relatively small number of national flags incorporating a diagonal line, with other examples including the DR Congo, Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago and Brunei.
The Basters are a Southern African ethnic group descended from Cape Coloureds and Nama of Khoisan origin. Since the second half of the 19th century, the Rehoboth Baster community has been concentrated in central Namibia, in and around the town of Rehoboth. Basters are closely related to Afrikaners, Cape Coloureds, and Griquas of South Africa and Namibia, with whom they share a largely Afrikaner-influenced culture and Afrikaans language. Other groups of similar mixed ethnic origin, living chiefly in the Northern Cape, also refer to themselves as Basters.
In heraldry and vexillology, fimbriation is the placement of small stripes of contrasting colour around common charges or ordinaries, usually in order for them to stand out from the background, but often simply due to the designer's subjective aesthetic preferences, or for a more technical reason to avoid what would otherwise be a violation of the rule of tincture. While fimbriation almost invariably applies to both or all sides of a charge, there are very unusual examples of fimbriation on one side only. Another rather rare form is double fimbriation, where the charge or ordinary is accompanied by two stripes of colour instead of only one. In cases of double fimbriation the outer colour is blazoned first. The municipal flag of Mozirje, in Slovenia, show an example of fimbriation that itself is fimbriated.
The South West Africa Territorial Force (SWATF) was an auxiliary arm of the South African Defence Force (SADF) and comprised the armed forces of South West Africa from 1977 to 1989. It emerged as a product of South Africa's political control of the territory which was granted to the former as a League of Nations mandate following World War I.
The coat of arms of Namibia is the official heraldic symbol of Namibia. Introduced at the time of independence in 1990, it superseded the earlier coat of arms used by the South African administration of the territory.
The coat of arms of Mauritius are stipulated in the "Mauritius Laws 1990 Vol.2 SCHEDULE ". In the lower left quarter is a key and on the right-hand side is a white star, which are referred to in the Latin motto "Stella Clavisque Maris Indici" meaning "Star and Key of the Indian Ocean".
Vehicle registration plates of Namibia are yellow fluorescent metal plates with imprints in black. The standard version is uniform throughout the country, and carries one of the following forms:
Franco-Yukonnais are French Canadian or French-speaking residents of Yukon, a territory of Canada. French has full official language status in the Yukon.
In heraldry, a pile is a charge usually counted as one of the ordinaries. It consists of a wedge emerging from the upper edge of the shield and converging to a point near the base. If it touches the base, it is blazoned throughout.
The coat of arms of the Orange Free State was the official heraldic symbol of the Orange Free State as a republic from 1857 to 1902, and later, from 1937 to 1994, as a province of South Africa. It is now obsolete.