Flag of New Zealand
Its colour palette includes blue, white, and red.
Current flag
Flag emoji 🇳🇿
New Zealand
Flag facts
Information about the flag’s design, colours and proportions.
- Proportion
- 1:2 height: width
Flag design
- Layout
- Plain field
- Symbols
- Union Jack – Canton and Star – In the field
- Colours
- Blue, white, and red
Sources
- Proportion: Manatū Taonga – New Zealand flag
Flag comparisons
The Southern Cross on New Zealand’s Blue Ensign
New Zealand’s flag has a blue field, the Union Jack in the upper hoist and four red, white-edged stars forming the Southern Cross. The Union Jack reflects the country’s historical constitutional relationship with Britain; the stars locate the design in the South Pacific sky.
The four red stars distinguish New Zealand’s flag from Australia’s, which has five Southern Cross stars and a large Commonwealth Star. Both flags belong to the Blue Ensign tradition, but their star arrangements are not interchangeable.
Country facts
- Type
- Country
- Name
- New Zealand
- Continent
- Oceania
- Capital
- Wellington
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
- NZ
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-3
- NZL
- ISO 3166-1 numeric
- 554
- Top-level domain
- .nz
- Area
- 268,680 km²
- Population
- 5,324,700 (2025)
- Currency
- NZD
- Calling code
- +64
Flags with a similar layout
These flags come from the same region and share one or more design characteristics.
Historical flags: New Zealand (1769–)
Images are ordered by the years listed in the collection. A listed year may not be the flag’s official adoption year.
About historical flags
Vexilla's historical flag collection includes former flags associated with present-day countries and territories, as well as flags of states, empires, and other authorities that historically governed them.
A flag's inclusion in a country's historical collection does not necessarily mean that the country was independent at the time or that the flag was its own national flag.
The years shown are based on historical records in the dataset and do not always indicate the date of official adoption. The collection is not exhaustive, and historical usage, territorial coverage, and interpretations may vary.
Related articles
How can you tell the flags of Australia and New Zealand apart?
Valto Tunnus Symbols and visual analysis writerThe flags of Australia and New Zealand look very similar: both feature the Union Jack and the Southern Cross. Learn the key differences and how to recognise each flag quickly.