Papua New Guinea

The flag of Papua New Guinea was adopted on July 1, 1971. In the hoist, it depicts the Southern Cross; in the fly, a bird of paradise is silhouetted. The designer of the flag was 15 year old schoolgirl Susan Huhume who won a nationwide competition for a new flag design in 1971. Red and black have long been traditional colors of many Papua New Guinean tribes. Black-white-red was the color of the German Empire’s flag, which had colonized New Guinea prior to 1918. The bird of paradise is also found on the national Coat of Arms.