Flag of Nauru

What the flag means

Nauru's government says the yellow stripe is the Equator and the star below it shows the island's position just south of the line. The twelve points are the island's twelve original tribes, the blue is the Pacific Ocean and the white is phosphate, once the main resource.

History

The design was chosen in a local competition before independence. It was made by a resident who worked for Evans, an Australian flag maker, and was adopted on 31 January 1968, the day Nauru became independent. The 1968 specifications set the stripe at one-twelfth of the flag's height. The Naoero National Anthem Emblem and Flag Protection Act 2018 now defines the flag.

The Nauru graph, a structure studied in mathematics, is named after the twelve-pointed star on the flag, which it resembles.

Earlier flags of Nauru

1. 1888–1899German New Guinea Company flag: white with the German tricolour in the canton
2. 1914–1942Australian Blue Ensign, used under Australian administration
3. 1945–1968Australian Blue Ensign again, under Australian and then UN trusteeship