Flag of Curaçao

What the flag of Curaçao looks like

The flag is mostly dark blue. A horizontal yellow stripe runs across it below the center, so the blue field is divided into a wide upper part and a narrower lower part. In the upper hoist corner are two white five-pointed stars, one larger and one smaller, set diagonally to each other. The flag has a ratio of 2:3.

The design is simple enough to be recognized from a distance, and the yellow stripe and stars make it distinct from other blue flags in the region. Its emoji, the Curaçao flag emoji, keeps all of these elements.

Curaçao flag meaning and symbolism

The usual explanation of the colors and symbols is:

• Blue: the sea (lower section) and the sky (upper section).
• Yellow: the bright sun that bathes the island.
• Two stars: the main island, Curaçao, and the smaller uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao, which lies to its southeast.
• Five points on each star: the five continents from which the people of Curaçao have come.

The blue is Pantone 280 and the yellow is Pantone 102; the white of the stars is the third color of the flag.

History of the Curaçao flag

Curaçao was reached by Spain in 1499 and taken by the Dutch West India Company in 1634, and it remained a Dutch possession through most of its history. From 1954 it was part of the Netherlands Antilles, and under that arrangement the island flew the flag of the Netherlands Antilles: a white field crossed by a red vertical stripe and a blue horizontal stripe, with a ring of white stars, one for each island.

In the 1980s each island looked for its own symbols. Curaçao received approval for a flag in 1979, after Aruba adopted its own. About two thousand designs were submitted and ten were shortlisted, and the council decided on a design on 29 November 1982. With some modifications, the flag was officially adopted on 2 July 1984.

On 10 October 2010 the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved, and Curaçao became a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, alongside Aruba, Sint Maarten and the Netherlands itself. Its flag became the national flag of the new country, while the Dutch tricolor continues to represent the Kingdom.

Curaçao flag and other Dutch Caribbean flags

Curaçao's neighbor Aruba uses a light-blue flag with two yellow stripes and a red star, and shares the same history under the Netherlands Antilles. The two flags are often confused because of their blue and yellow color pairing, but they differ in the shade of blue, the number of stripes and the number and color of stars. For a view of all territories of this region, see flags of the world.