Flag of Liberia
The Liberian flag was introduced on July 26, 1847 as the national flag. The Liberian flag flies at about 1,600 ships worldwide as a flag of convenience. The revenue for the registration of these vessels form an important part of the Liberian state budget.
Official Flag Day in Liberia is August 26th.
Description and significance
The Liberian flag consists of six red and five white horizontal stripes. It is located in the upper left corner ( Gosch ) a square, five strips high blue box in which centered a five-pointed white star is located. The star is called in the flag law only as "large", without specifying an exact size.
The eleven stripes symbolize the eleven signatories of the Liberian Declaration of Independence. The red color stands for courage, white for moral strength. The white star represents the regained freedom of the former slaves, the blue square the African homeland and documented that at state was founded only a single independent nation in sub-Saharan Africa existed.
History
The flag of Liberia is very similar to the flag of the United States. This is due to the historical ties to the United States. Liberia was founded by the Americans as a new home for freed slaves who were settled here. First, the country was an American colony and led since 1827 its own flag.
In its original form the flag of Liberia contained instead of a star, a cross, and had according to the American model 13 stripes. This flag was used by ships of the colony. When in 1845 one of these ships was seized by the British, because this flag is not recognized, it was decided to grant independence to the colony in order to give international validity of this flag. The independence came into force on 26 July 1847. With it, the national flag took its present form. The flag was designed and manufactured by a seven women committee.
In 1906 was thinking about a significant change in the flag, color and arrangement of the strips should be changed, the background color of the star was up for consideration, but the change was rejected.
Sub-national flags
The counties of Liberia have their own flags with very different looks. All have in common is the Liberian national flag in the naval jack of the flag.