Flag of Trinidad and Tobago

How to read it

The flag was chosen in 1962, the year of independence, from designs by the Independence Committee. Its official description, from the Ministry of Home Affairs booklet Our Flag and Other National Emblems (1962) as the Trinidad Guardian quotes it, is written in heraldry: “On a Red Field, a Bend Dexter Sable bordered Silver”, that is, a black diagonal from left to right bordered with white. The black and white bands together, where they meet the top corner by the pole, are one fifth of the flag’s length wide; each white edge is one sixth of that width and the black four sixths. In the booklet’s description, the black and white diagonals point to the top of the staff. The Office of the President gives the proportions as 5 long to 3 high, or 2 to 1 for the Coast Guard and ships at sea; the law forbids placing anything on the flag that would deface it, such as writing or pictures, and a licence is needed to make and sell it.

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Earth, water and fire

The Office of the President says the three colours were chosen to reflect the new nation’s philosophy and its determination to keep the harmony and unity of spirit beneath its people’s cultural diversity. Together, red, white and black also stand for the elements of fire, water and earth, which it describes as embodied in the country’s past, present and future. The white is also the cradle of the nation’s heritage and the purity of its aspirations; the black is the colour of strength, of unity of purpose and of the wealth of the land.

Telling it from other flags with a diagonal band

Tanzania’s flag also has a black diagonal band, but it rises from the bottom corner by the pole, its edges are yellow and the fields either side are green and blue, as Store norske leksikon describes it. Namibia’s diagonal band is red edged with white, between a blue field carrying a gold sun and a green one. Trinidad and Tobago’s is the one with a red field, and its band runs down from the top corner by the pole.