Flag of Australia

An overview

The national flag of Australia is a blue ensign in a 1:2 ratio: the Union Jack in the upper hoist quarter, the large seven-pointed Commonwealth Star centered below it, and the Southern Cross — four seven-pointed stars and a small five-pointed one — in the fly half. Six stars, forty points in all.

The design came from the public: a merged government-and-magazine competition in 1901 drew 32,823 entries, and five nearly identical ones shared the prize. The flag first flew on September 3, 1901; royal approval was gazetted in 1903; the Commonwealth Star took its seventh point in 1908; and the Flags Act 1953 made the blue ensign the Australian National Flag, with precedence over the Union Jack.

The Act settled a long ambiguity — for half a century, the flag most Australians actually flew on land was the red merchant version, with public use of the blue officially discouraged.

Star, cross, and Jack

The Commonwealth Star — the Federation Star — sits with one of its seven points aimed at the center of St George’s Cross in the Union Jack. Six points stand for the six federating states; the seventh, added in 1908, for the Territory of Papua and every territory since. The star is heraldic, not astronomical: it has no official relation to any real star.

The Southern Cross is the opposite — the southern sky’s most distinctive constellation, an emblem of Australia since the early days of British settlement, rendered with the schedule’s precision: Alpha through Delta Crucis at seven points each, little Epsilon at five. Ivor Evans, the schoolboy among the designers, intended the four main stars to carry a second meaning — the virtues Dante ascribed to them: justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude.

Design and official specification

The construction rules live in the Flags Act’s schedule, measured in fractions of the flag’s width — the hoist edge. The Commonwealth Star spans three-tenths of it, the four large Southern Cross stars one-seventh each, the small fifth star one-twelfth, and every star’s position is fixed to the fraction.

Official color specification

The Flags Act names only blue and white; the working color standards come from the government’s own style authorities. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet specifies the Pantone values, and the Australian Government Style Manual adds RGB for screens and CMYK for print.

Symbolism and meaning

The flag reads as three layers of identity — federation, sky, and heritage.

One designer added a private layer: Evans meant the four main stars of the Cross to stand for Dante’s four virtues — justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude.

How the flag evolved

Australians flew a National Colonial Flag as early as 1823, a Federation Flag from 1831, and the Eureka Stockade’s starred cross after 1854 — but the national flag itself was born whole in 1901, and has changed only by a point and a statute since.

1. 1901

   A flag from 32,823 entries

   

   After federation, the new government merged its flag competition with a magazine's and drew 32,823 entries — each contestant submitting a blue government ensign and a red merchant one. The judges took six days and chose five nearly identical designs; the £200 prize was split £40 each among a Melbourne schoolboy of fourteen, a Sydney optician's apprentice, an architect, a Perth artist, and a ship's officer from Auckland. The flag first flew on September 3, 1901, with a six-pointed Commonwealth Star.

2. 1903

   The King approves

   

   The winning design went to the Colonial Secretary in 1902, and on February 11, 1903, Prime Minister Edmund Barton announced in the Commonwealth Gazette that King Edward VII had approved it. The published version tidied the Southern Cross: the four large stars became seven-pointed and equal, beside the small five-pointed fifth.

3. 1908

   A seventh point

   

   On December 8, 1908, the Commonwealth Star gained its seventh point — for the Territory of Papua and any territories to come — completing the design flown today. From May 22, 1909, the blue ensign was the flag for government vessels; the public, meanwhile, was steered toward the red.

4. 1954

   The national flag by law

   

   For half a century the red ensign was the flag most Australians actually flew on land, with officialdom discouraging public use of the blue. The Flags Act 1953 settled it: the blue ensign became the Australian National Flag, with precedence over the Union Jack, and Queen Elizabeth II gave royal assent in person on February 14, 1954, during her visit. By the 1970s the blue was the national flag in most Australians' eyes as well as in law.

Who designed the Australian flag?

Five entrants who had never met, whose sketches were so alike the judges declared them joint winners: Ivor Evans, a 14-year-old Melbourne schoolboy; Leslie John Hawkins, a Sydney teenager apprenticed to an optician; Egbert John Nuttall, a Melbourne architect; Annie Dorrington, a Perth artist; and William Stevens, a ship’s officer from Auckland, New Zealand. Each took £40 of the £200 prize — a pool built from the two merged competitions plus £50 from the Havelock Tobacco Company.

The entries — one from an unnamed colonial governor among them — went on display at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, and the judges deliberated for six days before settling on the five.

Legal status and display rules

The Flags Act 1953 declares the blue ensign the Australian National Flag and gives it precedence over the Union Jack — whose private use Section 8 expressly preserves. Queen Elizabeth II gave the Act royal assent in person on February 14, 1954, during her Australian visit, after opening the new session of Parliament. Under Section 5 the governor-general may proclaim additional flags of Australia; five have been, including the Australian Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag in 1995. A 1998 amendment requires a plebiscite before the national flag could be changed.

Protocol follows the government’s "Australian Flags" booklet: the flag may fly every day of the year, in daylight unless illuminated, always aloft and free and in the superior position in Australia; it must fly on government buildings and, where possible, at polling places during national votes. It is never flown upside down — not even in distress — never placed on the ground or used as a covering, and a faded flag comes down.

Things you may not know

A schoolboy co-designed it. Ivor Evans was 14 when his sketch tied with four strangers’ near-identical entries among 32,823 — one of which came from an unnamed colonial governor.

Dante is on the flag. Evans intended the Southern Cross’s four main stars to carry the virtues Dante ascribed to them — justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude.

The people’s flag was red. For decades after federation, officialdom steered the public to the red merchant ensign and away from the blue — the design was identical, only the field differed. The Flags Act 1953 made the blue everyone’s flag.