Flag of Hawaii
The Flag of Hawaii, also known as the Hawaiian flag, is the official flag of the U.S. state of Hawaii. It consists of a field of eight horizontal stripes, in the sequence of white, red, blue, white, red, blue, white, red, with a British Union Jack depicted as a canton in the upper-left corner. The flag has been in use since 1845.
The use of the Union Jack is a legacy of the British Royal Navy's historical relations with the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and, in particular, the pro-British sentiment of its first ruler, King Kamehameha I. The kingdom was never formally part of the British Empire. The flag design was retained after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, after U.S. annexation in 1898, and after statehood in 1959.
Statute
The 2024 Hawaii Revised Statutes, § 5-19 defines that the flag shall consist of:Design and symbolism
The canton of the flag of Hawaii contains the Union Flag of the United Kingdom, prominent over the first quadrant closest to the flag mast. The field of the flag is composed of eight horizontal stripes, symbolizing the eight major islands. The color of the stripes, from the top down, follows the sequence: white, red, blue, white, red, blue, white, red. The colors "red", "blue", and "white" are not explicitly defined.Despite resembling the flags of British Overseas Territories, where the canton uses the full upper-left quadrant, the canton of the Hawaiian flag is proportioned in the ratio 4:7. This is a consequence of the flag having a 1:2 overall proportion while the description of the canton in Hawaiian law is given as: "half the hoist in breadth and 7-16 the fly in length".
In 2001, a survey conducted by the North American Vexillological Association placed Hawaii's flag 11th in design quality, out of the 72 U.S. and Canadian provincial, state, and territorial flags ranked.
History
Before 1816
Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy visited the Hawaiian Islands on three occasions during his 1791 to 1795 expedition. At this time, the Hawaiian Islands were divided among several warring chiefdoms. In February 1794, while at anchorage in Kealakekua Bay off the Hawaiʻi island, Vancouver reached a diplomatic agreement with the king '' of that island, Kamehameha, who would later unite all the Hawaiian islands and become the first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Vancouver believed that the agreement reached meant Hawaiʻi island was being ceded to Great Britain, but historians have argued that the Hawaiians saw the agreement as establishing a protectorate. After the proceedings on Vancouver's vessel, a British flag was presented, taken ashore and raised. The flag was either a British Union Jack, or a Red Ensign as used by the Royal Navy, which features a Union Jack in the canton. In 1801, the British Union Jack added a Saint Patrick's Cross when Ireland joined with Great Britain in a political union. Both pre- and post-1801 versions of the Red Ensign served as the unofficial flag of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi until 1816.There is an unverified anecdote that, during the War of 1812, Kamehameha became aware of the nationalist meaning of flags. To avoid offending either side, he designed a new flag for his kingdom which combined elements of both the British Union Jack and the flag of the United States.
1816–1845
In April 1816, Kamehameha purchased a brig from Scottish Captain Alexander Adams, and arranged for Adams to take command of the ship, which was renamed Kaʻahumanu after the wife of Kamehameha. As part of the transfer ceremony, Adams wrote that he was "honored to take command under the Flag of His Majesty" though he does not describe the flag. The next year, in March 1817, the Kaʻahumanu became the first Hawaiian vessel to sail to a foreign port under a "distinct" Hawaiian flag. In one source, this is described as: "A St. George and St. Andrews Cross in the corner filled in with blue, with field consisting of red and white stripes" which virtually matches the ensign of the East India Company though another source describes "red, white and blue stripes added to a Union Jack".The Russian navigator Vasily Golovnin, based on a visit to Oʻahu in 1818, describes seeing a "national flag" which "consists of seven stripes: red, white, blue, red, white, blue and red, with the English Union Jack in the corner".
Until 1845, visitors to the Hawaiian Islands reported various versions of the flag with different numbers of stripes and colors.
1845–Present
In 1843, either as an inadvertent mistake, or as a symbolic "reversal" gesture in the wake of the Paulet affair - a five-month-long, unofficial occupation of Hawaii by a British naval officer - the flag design was specified to have eight stripes: a white stripe on top followed by the sequence red, blue, white, red, blue, white, red. This new flag was officially unfurled on May 25, 1845, at the opening of the legislative council and remains the same design as used today.In 1990, Governor of Hawaii John Waiheʻe proclaimed July 31 to be Lā Hae Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiian Flag Day. It has been celebrated each year since then. It is the same date as Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Sovereignty Restoration Day, a holiday of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi that is celebrated by proponents of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.Chronology
Other flags
Flag of the Governor
The flag used by the governor of Hawaii is a red and blue bicolor. In the middle of the eight white stars appears the name of the state in all capital letters. During the time Hawaii was a United States territory, the letters in the middle of the flag were "TH", which stood for "Territory of Hawaii".flag
The Native Hawaiians design is purported by some to be the original flag of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, though this claim is unverified and widely disputed. It was introduced to the public by Gene Simeona in 2001. It has nine alternating stripes of green, red, and yellow defaced with a green shield with a puela crossed by two paddles.Gene Simeona claims to have unearthed the Kānaka Maoli flag in 1999. Simeona said he encountered a descendant of Lord George Paulet who told him about an earlier flag. Simeona claims to have found evidence of the Kānaka Maoli flag in the state archives, though any sources he may have used have not been identified. Subsequent efforts to verify Simeona's claim have been unsuccessful. Critics of the claim have pointed to evidence of the widely accepted Hawaiian flag being in existence before the Kānaka Maoli flag.
Louis "Buzzy" Agard had proposed a Hawaiian flag design in 1993 which featured nine alternating stripes and the same charge as on the Kānaka Maoli flag, leading many to believe it is where Simeona drew his inspiration.
Despite the lack of verification about its historic use, the design is popular among those who prefer its lack of apparent colonial imagery.