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No. 134 / 195Flag of Papua New Guinea
Capital
Port Moresby
Continent
Oceania
Flag adopted
1971(r1)
Designer
Susan Karike

Papua New Guinea

What the source says

Referenced, awaiting primary-source review
Adopted on 1 July 1971. Red and black have long been traditional colours of many Papua New Guinean tribes. The bird of paradise is a symbol of tribal culture, and its soaring position represents the nation's emergence; the Southern Cross signifies their relationship with other nearby countries in the southern hemisphere. The upper triangle is red with a Raggiana bird-of-paradise in gold; the lower triangle is black with five white stars forming the Southern Cross. Designer: Susan Karike.
(r1) Flag of Papua New Guinea (Wikipedia (English)), read on 2026-07-17. States the adoption year, which colors the flag has, what the colors mean and the symbolism and history on this page.

Referenced, not verified: a secondary work states this, and the document that constitutes the flag has not been read for this entry. What the marks mean.

Colors and meaning

  • Red(r1) #CE1126

    A traditional colour of many Papua New Guinean tribes(r1)

  • Black(r1) #000000

    A traditional colour of many Papua New Guinean tribes(r1)

  • Gold(r1) #FFCD00

    The bird-of-paradise, a symbol of tribal culture, its soaring position the nation's emergence(r1)

  • White(r1) #FFFFFF

    The Southern Cross, signifying the relationship with nearby southern-hemisphere countries(r1)

Symbolism and history(r1)

A gold Raggiana bird-of-paradise on the upper red triangle beside five white stars forming the Southern Cross on the lower black triangle, the design of a 15-year-old schoolgirl, Susan Karike, who won a nationwide competition ahead of independence, adopted in 1971.

Most similar flags

The 6 closest of the 194 other national flags, ranked by a similarity index computed from the flag images themselves. The number is that index, 0–100 — not a claim that the two flags are “X% identical”.

Computed at build time: each flag is rasterised to 64x48, and the score is 0.55 × colour overlap + 0.45 × structure. A different weighting would rank these differently. How the index works.

References — not verification

Further reading: Flag of Papua New Guinea on Wikipedia

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