Flags of the Pacific Trivia Quiz

Answer: Papua New Guinea

In addition to incorporating the traditional colours in its design, the flag of Papua New Guinea includes the Southern Cross constellation, popular in many of the flags of the southern hemisphere, and a bird of paradise, symbolizing the country's emergence as a nation. The bird of paradise in PNG is called a kamul, and is also a large part of the country's cultural identity.

The flag was adopted in 1971 after a design competition, which was won by 15-year-old Susan Karike. It became official upon PNG's independence from Australia on September 16th, 1975.

Answer: Norfolk Island

The Territory of Norfolk Island is one of the seven external territories that is part of the Federation of Australia, and is itself comprised of three islands (Norfolk Island, Phillip Island and Nepean Island) with Kingston as its capital. Founded about a month after Sydney, Kingston is the second-oldest settlement of Australia.

The Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla) is a key export for the island group, and is popular as an ornamental tree in Australia (and even around the world, to a lesser extent). The symbol was incorporated in the flag's design, along with the green representing the territory's plentiful vegetation and fertile land, and was adopted on June 9th, 1979.

Answer: Nauru

Nauru's flag is blue to represent the ocean, with the gold line as the equator. The 12-pointed white star is not only located just below the equator (one degree below in reality) on the flag, but it has other significance in its design, with the 12 points representing the different tribes native to the island, and the white representing phosphorous, on which the country has economically relied for a long time.

The flag was adopted on January 31st, 1968 - the date that it achieved independence from the post-WWII trusteeship administered by the United Nations, Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom.

Answer: Solomon Islands

There are six main islands in the country of Solomon Islands (whose name no longer includes the "The") plus more than 900 smaller islands in an area extending 1,500 km from easternmost to the westernmost island.

When the flag was originally adopted in November of 1977, and officially raised with the Independence Day ceremony on July 7th, 1978. The five white stars represented the five provinces of the country at the time, and even though that number has increased in the years following, the flag has not been altered to reflect that difference. The blue and green fields represent the ocean (and rivers) and verdant land, respectively, with the yellow stripe representing the sun and its rays.

Answer: Tonga

The flag of the Kingdom of Tonga is quite straightforward in its symbolism. The cross in the canton is the cross of Christianity, with the white background representing purity, and the red representing the blood shed by Jesus Christ on the cross.

The flag went through some changes from the original design idea in 1845, but when a new constitution was proclaimed in November of 1875, the current flag design was enshrined in Article 47 as never being alterable and that it shall always be the flag of Tonga.

Answer: Tuvalu

Tuvalu was once dubbed the Ellice Islands as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (along with the Gilbert Islands). In 1975, the neighbouring island groups voted to separate into two colonies, taking on the names Tuvalu and Kiribati. Just a few years later, Tuvalu became a sovereign state within the Commonwealth (in 1978).

The name 'Tuvalu' means 'eight together,' referring to the fact that only eight of the nine islands were inhabited when Tuvalu became an independent nation. At one point, the flag was actually changed to depict just eight stars, but it was changed back when the ninth island was also inhabited.

Answer: Vanuatu

The symbolism on Vanuatu's flag include the colours of green for the richness of the islands, red for the blood which unites humanity, black to represent the ni-Vanuatu people. The gold was chosen to bring out the black (and vice versa), and is used for the shape of the islands layout, as well as for the inclusion of a boar's tusk (symbolizing custom, tradition and prosperity) and two leaves of the namele tree, with 39 leaflets representing the original 39 members of the Vanuatu parliament.

The flag was adopted with Vanuatu's independence from the French/British joint colonial government on February 18th, 1980.

Answer: Cook Islands

The 15 major Cook Islands are spread out in two groups over an ocean area of 2.2 million km2. While they received self-governance in 1965, they are still closely tied to New Zealand, and only truly took over their own foreign and defense policy.

Answer: Samoa

In the late 1800s, the Samoan islands were essentially fought over by German, British and American interests. The Tripartite Convention of 1899 divided the islands into American Samoa (to the east) and German Samoa (to the west). In 1914 at the beginning of WWI, New Zealand troops occupied German Samoa uncontested, and following the war until 1961, New Zealand governed the newly dubbed Western Samoa Trust Territory.

With independence, the name became simply Western Samoa and remained so until 1997, when the constitution amended the name to Samoa.

Answer: New Zealand

From the time that New Zealand became its own colony, separating from New South Wales in 1840, the official flag was simply the British Union Jack, but with the New Zealand Ensign Act in 1902, the current flag (already in use as a naval ensign) was officially adopted as the national flag.

A referendum was conducted in 2015 and 2016 to consider changing the flag, with 40 designs presented and eventually shortlisted down to five. In the end, the population voted to keep the original flag.