Flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

How to read it

The government says the flag was officially adopted on 12 October 1985 and is sometimes called “The Gems”. Norway’s Store norske leksikon gives the proportions as 2:3 and the bands, blue, gold and green counting from the pole, as 1:2:1, with the three green diamonds on the gold in the shape of a V. One flag serves every purpose, civil and state. It replaced the flag of 1979, which had the same colours with narrow white stripes between the bands and, on the gold, a green breadfruit leaf carrying the arms; the encyclopedia says a Swiss designer drew the new one.

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Why diamonds

The government’s page explains the diamonds in two ways: they are shaped in a V for St Vincent and stand for the plural nature of the many islands of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and as gems they make the country “the gem of the Antilles”. Searchlight wrote in 2006 that the three diamonds are also called the Gems of the Antilles. The government gives the colours too: blue is the sky and sea; gold is warmth, the bright spirit of the people and the golden sands of the Grenadines; green is the lush vegetation of St Vincent’s agriculture and the lasting vitality of the people.

The 1979 flag and the change in 1985

The country has had two flags since independence. Searchlight describes the first, unfurled on 27 October 1979: the same blue, yellow and green in vertical bands, with white stripes between them, and the coat of arms of 1912 on a green breadfruit leaf on the yellow. On 21 October 1985, Searchlight says, the white stripes went and the arms on the leaf were replaced by the three green diamonds. The government and Store norske leksikon give 12 October 1985 as the date the new flag was officially adopted.

Telling it from Barbados’s flag

Barbados’s flag also has three vertical bands with gold in the middle, but both outer bands are blue, the three are of equal width, and the gold carries a black trident, Store norske leksikon says. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has blue by the pole and green at the fly, a gold band twice as wide as the others, and three green diamonds.