The Whitney Smith design uses the high-visibility color orange as its background (it is the international rescue color, it contrasts the best against snow, and to avoid any confusion, is unlike almost any national flag on Earth). The emblem consists of several components. ‘A’ stands for Antarctica. The bottom segment of the globe represents Antarctica’s “position” on Earth (according to the modern convention of drawing maps with north on top), while the two hands holding up the globe segment represent peaceful human use. The emblem is colored white to represent the snow and ice of Antarctica and is offset toward the hoist of the flag so as to maintain its integrity should the flag fray badly in the high winds prevalent upon the continent. However, there is no record of it ever being fabricated or used, despite being displayed in some atlases.
Some of the claimed, but unrecognized, Antarctic territories have flags associated with them, including provincial flags that represent both recognized mainland and unrecognized Antarctic claim areas.