Aruba Dushi Tera (Aruba Sweet Earth) Part 4

Our Flag

Since 1995, our island had it's official coat of arms and a song that the majority already considered as the anthem of Aruba. On January 21, 1976, a competition was organized for the community to create a design for our national flag. A total of 693 designs were received; mostly from school children. For different reasons their wishes were to have a four-pointed star and a preference for stripes and/or horizontal or vertical marks. The dominant colors were red, white, blue and yellow.

With the help of the Flag Research Institute of Boston, a design was chosen. The color of the fields of the Aruban flag is ''Larkspur" , which is the "British Colour Dictionary of Colour Standards No.196" ,also known as U.N. Blue. The yellow stripes are "Bunting Yellow no.113" from the same dictionary. The red of the star is "Union Jack Red no.210" and the white fimbriation of the star is no.1 . Nowadays the aforementioned color dictionary does not exist anymore. According to the Flag Research Center in Massachusetts these colors are translated in the Pantone Color Guide as   279 Blue, 186 Red, 108 Yellow and absolute white.

On March 16, 1976, Aruba's parliament approved the design for the official Aruban flag and on March 18, 1976, the flag of Aruba was officially inaugurated. During a grand ceremony in the Wilhelmina Stadium, the flag was raised for the first time while "Aruba Dushi Tera" was played as national anthem of Aruba.

The blue color of the flag represents the sea surrounding our island and the position of the star on the flag resembles the position of Aruba in the Caribbean Sea.

The red star represents the intense passion of every citizen for their island and the indigenous people tthat spilled their blood during battle for their liberty in the French Pass. The white outline of the red star symbolizes Aruba's extensive white sand beaches, that surround our island and that at the same moment, the noble heart of the habitants that respect justice, order, and liberty.

The four pointed star also symbolizes the four directions on the compass, indicating the different countries from where people came to live on Aruba to form a harmonious community.

Yellow is the color of abudance and the horizontal stripes reflects the firmness of that abudance. The yellow color also symbolizes the former sources of income, such as the gold, phosphate and aloe industry. Also a large number of trees and plants on the island produce yellow blooms, such as the kibrahacha, brasil, bonchi di strena, tuturuto and wanglo.