Samoa
What the source says
Referenced, awaiting primary-source reviewThe current flag was adopted on 24 February 1949. [Per the Prime Minister:] the blue represents freedom, the red represents blood and thus life, and the Southern Cross in the flag tells the world where Samoa is. [The Act does not assign official symbolism; these meanings are attributed to vexillologists and the Prime Minister.]
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
Symbolism and history(r1)
Five white stars of the Southern Cross, which tell the world where Samoa is, sit on a blue canton beside a plain red field, adopted in 1949 (a fifth star added to the earlier four-star design).
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”.
- Norway86
near-identical colour proportions.
- Morocco84
the same colours in similar amounts.
- Tonga83
the same colours in similar amounts.
- Türkiye83
the same colours in similar amounts.
- China82
the same colours in similar amounts.
- Tunisia82
the same colours in similar amounts.
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
(r1) Referenced to Flag of Samoa (Wikipedia (English)) 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. The passage it states them in is quoted at the top of this entry.
Further reading: Flag of Samoa on Wikipedia