french overseas territories

French Southern and Antarctic Lands 1

French Southern and Antarctic Lands

The French Southern and Antarctic Lands have formed a territoire d’outre-mer (an overseas territory) of France since 1955. Formerly, they were administered from Paris by an administrateur supérieur assisted by a secretary-general; since December 2004, however, their administrator has been a préfet, currently Cécile Pozzo di Borgo, with headquarters in Saint-Pierre on Réunion Island.

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French Polynesia 2

French Polynesia

Two red horizontal bands encase a wide white band in a 1:2:1 ratio; centered on the white band is a 0.43m diameter disk with a blue and white wave pattern depicting the sea on the lower half and a gold and white ray pattern depicting the sun on the upper half; a Polynesian canoe rides on the wave pattern; the canoe has a crew of five represented by five stars that symbolize the five island groups; red and white are traditional Polynesian colors.

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French Guiana 3

French Guiana

On 29 January 2010, the general council (departmental council) of the overseas department of French Guiana unilaterally adopted a flag for the department of French Guiana. This was not recognized by the superior regional council. Both councils were disbanded in late 2015 and replaced by the French Guiana Assembly within the framework of the new Territorial Collectivity of French Guiana. Moreover, only the French flag is officially recognized by the French constitution as the national flag. The green and yellow flag is still used by the French Guiana national football team.

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Djibouti 4

Djibouti

The national flag of Djibouti was adopted on 27 June 1977, following the country’s independence from France. The light blue represents the sky and the sea, as well as the Issa Somalis, green represents the everlasting green of the earth, as well as the Afar people, white represents the color of peace and the red star represents the unity and the blood shed by the martyrs of independence.

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Côte d'Ivoire 5

Côte d’Ivoire

The National Emblem must be the living symbol of the fatherland:

orange: recalling the color of our rich and generous earth; it is the meaning of our struggle, the blood of a young people in its struggle for our emancipation;
white: peace, but the peace of right;
green: hope, of course, for others; but for us, the certainty of a better future

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Congo 6

Congo

The colours of the flag carry cultural, political, and regional meanings. The green symbolizes the agriculture and forests of the Congo, while the yellow represents the “friendship and nobility” of the Congolese people. However, the symbolism behind the red was left unexplained. From a continental viewpoint, the green, yellow and red are the colours of the Pan-Africanist movement; it is the only Pan-Africanist flag to utilize a diagonal pattern in its design. They are also the same colours utilized in the flag of Ethiopia, the oldest independent country in Africa and the only nation other than Liberia to remain independent during the Scramble for Africa.

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Comoros 7

Comoros

The national flag of the Union of the Comoros was designed in 2001 and officially adopted on January 7, 2002. It continues to display the crescent and four stars, which is a motif that has been in use in slightly various forms since 1975 during the independence movement. In its constitution, the government of the Comoros refers to the insignia as l’emblème national, or the “national emblem”, though it is understood to actually represent a flag.

The design consists of a white crescent with four white five-pointed stars inside of a green triangle. The flag has four stripes, representing four islands of the nation: Yellow is for Mohéli, White is for Mayotte (claimed by Comoros but administered by France), Red is for Anjouan, and Blue is for Grande Comore. The four stars on the flag also symbolize the four islands of the Comoros. The star and crescent symbol stands for their main religion, Islam.

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Quebec 8

Quebec

he flag of Quebec, called the Fleurdelisé (the Lily-flowered) represents the province of Quebec. It consists of a white cross on a blue background, with four white fleur-de-lis.

It was adopted by the government of Quebec during the administration of Maurice Duplessis (March 9, 1950). It was the first provincial flag officially adopted in Canada, first shown on January 21, 1948, at the Parliament Building of the National Assembly in Quebec City. Quebec’s Flag Day (January 21) commemorates its adoption each year, though for some time it was celebrated in May. At least one parade marked the flag’s 60th anniversary in January 2008.

The Fleurdelisé takes its white cross from the royal flags of the Kingdom of France, namely the French naval flag as well as the French merchant flag.

Its white fleurs-de-lis (symbols of purity) and blue field (symbolizing Heaven) come from a banner honouring the Virgin Mary. One such was reputedly carried by French Canadian militia at General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm’s victory at Carillon.

The flag is blazoned Azure, a cross between four fleurs-de-lis argent. Its horizontal symmetry allows both sides of the flag to show the same image.

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Cambodia 9

Cambodia

The flag used today is the same as that established in 1948, although the older flag is sometimes said to have used a red outline for Angkor Wat while the current flag uses black specifically. Since that time, five other intervening designs have been used. Almost all made use of the image of the temple of Angkor Wat in one form or another. This famous temple site, which dates from the 12th century, was built by the Mahidharapura monarchs. It has five towers, but these were not always all depicted in the stylised version used on flags. The monarchy was restored in September 1993, the 1948 flag having been readopted in June of that year.

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Burkina Faso 10

Burkina Faso

The national flag of Burkina Faso is formed by two equal horizontal bands of red (top) and green, with a yellow five-pointed star resting in the center. The flag was adopted on 4 August 1984. The flag is coloured in the popular Pan-African colours of the Ethiopian flag, reflecting both a break with the country’s colonial past and its unity with other African ex-colonies. The red is also said to symbolize the revolution and the green the abundance of agricultural and natural riches. The yellow star placed over the red and green stripes is the guiding light of the revolution. The flag was adopted following the coup of 1983 which brought Thomas Sankara to power.

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