Flag of Chile

Chile Flag

Chile Flag

The flag of Chile depicts a white, five-pointed star in the top left-hand corner of the flag in a blue square box. The rest of the top half of the flag is colored with a white band. The bottom half is a red band that stretches from one side of the flag to the other. The flag of Chile is also called La Estrella Solitaria in Spanish, which means The Lone Star. It bears a very close resemblance to the flag of the American state of Texas, which is also known as the Lone Star State.

Interpretations on the meaning of the Chilean flag’s star symbol vary. Some say it has a general meaning such as a guiding star towards progressiveness and honor. On the other hand, it may symbolize Chilean independence, while the blue in the flag represents the ocean and sky, and the white represented the snow-capped Andean Mountains. Red represents the blood shed for Chile to become independent.

The flags used before the official one came into use come from various sources and had a few similarities. The Mapuche tribe used a flag that was uniformly blue with a white eight-pointed star in the center. Colonizing armies in Chile typically used some variation of the Spanish flag. The first flag representing Chile was called the Flag of the Patria Vieja. It consisted of three equal bands stretched horizontally along the flag. The top band was blue, the middle was white and the bottom was gold. An alternative version had the blue and white bands reversed, plus a red Cross of Santiago in the top left-hand corner and a Chilean shield in the center.

The Flag of the Transition came into being in the early 1800s and consisted of three equal bands horizontally across the flag. The top band was blue, middle was white and the bottom was red. Because of its similarity to the flags of France and the Netherlands, it was quickly abandoned. The current flag came into being shortly after. The design of the flag likely came from Jose Ignacio Zenteno, who was the Minister of War under Bernardo O’Higgins. It was decreed the official Chile flag on October 18, 1817.

world flags