Flag of Hawaii

How to read it

The flag is described by Hawaii Revised Statutes § 5-19, enacted in 1990; the state constitution, article XV, § 3, makes the Hawaiian flag the state flag, and an 1896 law described the earlier one. It has eight stripes, white, red and blue in turn from the top, with a jack in the upper corner by the pole: a blue field with a white and red saltire, the white first, a narrow white edge on each red side, and a white-bordered red cross over all. The flag is twice as long as it is high. The jack is half the flag’s height and seven-sixteenths of its length; the arms of the red cross with its border are as wide as one stripe, the white border a third of the cross’s width, and the saltire’s white, red and border are in the ratio 3 : 2 : 1. On the same halyard it flies under the US flag. At half-mast it flies a quarter of the way down the pole, not halfway, and it is folded into a triangle like a cocked hat with only the jack showing.

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Telling it from the Union Flag

The corner is Britain’s flag, the Union Flag: the statute describes it as a white and red saltire under a white-bordered red cross on blue. On Hawaii’s flag it fills only the upper corner by the pole, and the rest of the flag is the eight stripes. The Hawaii Legislative Reference Bureau says the stripes on the state seal, which repeat the flag, stand for the eight main islands.

A kingdom’s flag

The flag is older than the state. The National Park Service at Puʻukoholā Heiau says it has flown for the united Kingdom of Hawaii, the Provisional Government after the overthrow of the monarchy, the Republic of Hawaii, the Territory and the State. Store norske leksikon says King Kamehameha I was given a British red ensign by Captain George Vancouver in 1793 and used it unofficially for a long time. The present design may be the work of Alexander Adams, a Scottish captain who commanded the king’s navy and flew a flag of the Union Jack and white, red and blue stripes on a voyage to China in 1817, or of George Charles Beckley, another Briton in Kamehameha’s service, as early as 1807. It had nine stripes in 1816, later seven, and eight were fixed in 1843. The Park Service site keeps Hawaiian Flag Day on 31 July.