Flag of the Bahamas

How to read it

The flag was adopted on 10 July 1973, the Tribune writes, the day the Bahamas became independent. The government describes it as a black equilateral triangle against the mast, on a background of three equal stripes of aquamarine, gold and aquamarine, and says the design reflects the sun, sand and sea and the country’s economic and social development. The Tribune names the Rev. Dr Hervis Bain, art master at the Government High School and later art education officer at the Ministry of Education, as the designer of both the national flag and the national coat of arms.

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Which way the triangle points

The government’s rules for the flag say the black triangle should not be shown pointing upwards or from the viewer’s right, which would be a sign of distress. On a coffin the flag covers the top completely, with the black triangle over the head of the deceased; it stays there through the service and is taken off just before the coffin is lowered, then folded and put away.

Two readings of the stripes

The government’s description makes the gold the sun and the aquamarine the sea. At the flag-raising at Government House on 1 July 2025, which opened the 52nd independence celebrations, the commitment statement read the gold stripe as the sun, the sand and the country’s natural resources, the aquamarine stripes as the waters of the Bahamas, and the black triangle as the strength, vigour and force of the Bahamian people.

The Bahamas’ and Barbados’s flags

Both have blue either side of gold with something black on them. Barbados’s flag has three vertical panels, ultramarine either side of gold, with a black broken trident in the centre, as the Parliament of Barbados describes it. The Bahamas’ stripes run across the flag, its blue is aquamarine, and its black is a triangle at the pole.