Flag of Bonaire

The flag of Bonaire, adopted on 11 December 1981, represents the Dutch island in the Caribbean Netherlands. Each year on September 6, Bonaire celebrates Flag Day to remember when Europeans first arrived on the island. A professional flag designer named Whitney Smith helped create the flag.

The flag shows a large dark blue area in the lower right and a smaller yellow area in the upper left. The blue stands for the sea, and the yellow stands for the sun. Between them is a white stripe that represents the sky. Originally, the yellow area was red, like the Dutch flag, but it was changed to yellow so there would not be two separate red parts.

Inside the white stripe are a black compass and a red six-pointed star. The compass stands for the island’s people who have always lived by the sea. The star’s points stand for the six original villages of Bonaire: Antriol, Nikiboko, Nort Saliña, Playa, Rincon and Tera Korá, showing equality in all cardinal directions.