Flag of the Netherlands within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was adopted on 13 June 1985. It resembles the War Flag of the Philippines. The pre-independence flag of Suriname consisted of five coloured stars (from top left clockwise: white, black, brown, yellow, and red) connected by an ellipse. The coloured stars represent the major ethnic groups that comprise the Surinamese population: the original Amerindians, the colonizing Europeans, the Africans brought in as slaves to work in plantations and the Indians, Javanese and Chinese who came as indentured workers to replace the Africans who escaped slavery and settled in the hinterland. The ellipse represents
Flag coloured flags. Many national flags and other flags include religious symbols such as the cross, the crescent, or a reference to a patron saint. Flags are also adopted by religious groups and flags such as the Jain flag, Sikh flag, sindhi flag and the Christian flag are used to represent a whole religion. As languages rarely have a flag designed to represent them, it is a common but unofficial practice to use national flags to identify them. The practice is discouraged and can be irritating and because flags tend to evoke feelings other than the intended meaning. Examples of such