---
title: "Flag of Australia: colours and meaning"
description: "What every colour and symbol on the Australia flag stands for, its official 1:2 ratio, and the year the current design was adopted."
url: https://atoneplace.net/flag/australia/
site: "At One Place"
---

# The flag of Australia

**The flag of Australia: A blue field with the Union Jack in the canton, a large white seven-pointed star beneath it, and the five stars of the Southern Cross in the fly.**

Ratio 1:2 · current design adopted 1908

*[Flag drawn on the page: Australia]*

The Commonwealth Star had six points when the flag was chosen in 1901 and gained its seventh in 1908 to cover the territories. The Southern Cross stars are not identical: four have seven points and the smallest, Epsilon Crucis, has five — a distinction Australia introduced in 1908 and New Zealand never adopted. The winning design came from a 1901 competition with five joint winners, including a fourteen-year-old schoolboy, who shared the prize money. Since 1995 the Aboriginal flag and the Torres Strait Islander flag have also been official flags of Australia, and the Commonwealth bought the Aboriginal flag's copyright outright in 2022.

## Flags it gets confused with

*[Flag drawn on the page: Australia, New Zealand]*

*Drawn at each flag’s own official ratio, which is itself the difference in some of these pairs.*

| Flag | How to tell them apart |
| --- | --- |
| New Zealand | New Zealand has four stars, not six, they are red with white borders rather than plain white, and there is no large Commonwealth Star. |

## What the colours mean

*Flag laws usually specify a Pantone chip, a CMYK mix or just a colour name. Converting any of those to sRGB is lossy, which is why published hex values disagree.*

- **Blue** (#00247D) — The field, inherited from the British Blue Ensign
- **White** (#FFFFFF) — The stars
- **Red** (#FF0000) — Present only within the Union Jack

## The symbols on it

| What | What it stands for |
| --- | --- |
| Commonwealth Star | Seven points: six for the original states, one for the territories |
| Southern Cross | The constellation Crux, visible year-round across Australia |

- **Ratio:** 1:2
- **Current design adopted:** 1908
- **Colours:** blue, white, red

## Common questions

### What does the flag of Australia look like?

A blue field with the Union Jack in the canton, a large white seven-pointed star beneath it, and the five stars of the Southern Cross in the fly.

### What do the colours of the Australia flag mean?

Blue: the field, inherited from the British Blue Ensign. White: the stars. Red: present only within the Union Jack.

### How do you tell the Australia flag from the New Zealand one?

New Zealand has four stars, not six, they are red with white borders rather than plain white, and there is no large Commonwealth Star.

### When was the Australia flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1908, and its official ratio is 1:2.

## Related pages

- [Australia](https://atoneplace.net/country/australia/)
- [The flag of New Zealand](https://atoneplace.net/flag/new-zealand/)
- [Every flag with blue in it](https://atoneplace.net/flag/colour/blue/)
- [The flag of United States](https://atoneplace.net/flag/united-states/)
- [The flag of India](https://atoneplace.net/flag/india/)
- [The flag of United Kingdom](https://atoneplace.net/flag/united-kingdom/)
- [The flag of France](https://atoneplace.net/flag/france/)
- [The flag of Russia](https://atoneplace.net/flag/russia/)
- [The flag of Brazil](https://atoneplace.net/flag/brazil/)
- [The flag of South Korea](https://atoneplace.net/flag/south-korea/)
- [The flag of Ukraine](https://atoneplace.net/flag/ukraine/)

## Sources

- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place (/about/)