Flag of Barbados

How to read it

The flag was first hoisted on 30 November 1966, when Barbados became independent. The Parliament of Barbados describes three equal vertical panels, the outer ones ultramarine and the centre one gold, with a broken trident in black in the centre, in the proportion 3:2 (three long to two high), and gives the British Standard colour codes as ultramarine BCC 148 and gold BS 0/002. It was designed by Grantley Prescod, a secondary school master and education officer. The Nation reported that his design won the flag prize of $500 out of 1,029 designs sent in by 520 entrants; Prescod had completed seven designs by the closing date, 10 August 1966, and sketched the winning one only that morning.

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Why the trident is broken

Prescod told the Nation that his design was partly inspired by the badge Barbados had before independence, which showed the sea god Neptune driving two horses from a seashell and carrying his trident. The Parliament says the trident appeared in the seal of the colony, which the coat of arms replaced, and that its broken shaft marks Barbados’s break with its historical and constitutional ties as a former colony. The Nation put it as the break with the colonial past in 1966.

What flag is blue and yellow?

Ukraine’s is two equal horizontal bands, blue above yellow, as Ukraine’s constitution describes it. Barbados’s bands are vertical, blue either side of gold, with the black trident in the centre. The Bahamas’ flag is aquamarine, gold and aquamarine in horizontal stripes, with a black triangle at the pole, as the Bahamas government describes it.