Why hawaii flag union jack

The state flag of Hawaii also stands out from other state flags because it was used to represent Hawaii as an independent kingdom before it became the Hawaii state flag.

The state flag of Hawaii features the Union Jack in the canton along with eight horizontal stripes that alternate between white, red, and blue. The eight stripes represent the eight major islands of Hawaii, while the colors reflect the state's history. They combine the colors of both the British and American national flags, which reflects the relationship that the Kingdom of Hawaii had with both of those governments.

The origins of the Hawaii state flag can be traced back to the reign of King Kamehameha I. He was given a British flag as a sign of friendship, and he responded by flying the flag at his own home.

He lowered the flag only when his advisors warned him that the flag might be taken as a sign of an alliance with the British Empire, which might bring Hawaii into a war with Britain's enemies. Some sources say that he lowered the British flag during the War of and began to fly an American flag to keep the peace with the United States, but that he also lowered the American flag shortly thereafter to avoid offending Britain.

The historicity of the story is questionable, but it does explain why the Hawaiian state flag was a combination of the flags of America and Britain.

Hawaii adopted a flag of its own in It has remained a part of the flag. What's interesting is that, when the union jack changed in , so did the flag of Hawaii, even though there wasn't an official connection. The flag of British Antarctic Territory consists of a union jack on a white background, reminiscent of snow, with a lion and a penguin on the crest.

The flag of the Falkland Islands features a union jack, alongside their coat of arms, showing a ram - symbolic of the local sheep industry - and the Desire, the ship whose crew were said to have discovered the islands in the 16th Century.

The Cook Islands , a self-governing territory of New Zealand, has the union jack next to 15 stars representing the main islands of the group. The flag of St Helena , in the mid-Atlantic, was commissioned in to commemorate years as a Crown colony. Its union jack stands alongside a crest bearing a wirebird - the national bird - and a ship beside a rocky cliff. Since , Ascension Island has had its own flag, having previously flown the union flag alone on ceremonial occasions.

The new design still incorporates it, but uses other symbols from the southern Atlantic British territory in its crest. These include three wideawake birds and two turtles.

Canada's national flag hasn't featured a union jack since But the flags of the provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia do. Tuvalu, in the south Pacific, dropped the union jack from its flag in January but reinstated it 15 months later, after Bikenibeu Paeniu was elected prime minister. This is the respect for the fathers of our nation.

But one sticks out more than any of the others; Hawaii is the only flag to depict the Union Flag of the United Kingdom in its design. It is one of the more vibrant state flags, with three red stripes, three white stripes and two blue stripes. The choice of red, white and blue stripes makes it a recognisably American design. One prominent feature, however, is arrestingly un-American — the unmistakable Union Flag of the United Kingdom is displayed in the canton.

As Hawaii, they became the most recent of the 50 states of the United States in