Christmas Island

Christmas Island (officially the Territory of Christmas Island) is an external territory of Australia located in the Indian Ocean, about 2,600 kilometres north west off the coast of Western Australia.

The flag of Christmas Island is a blue and green diagonal bicolour, with the blue diagonal closest to the hoist side of the flag and the green diagonal closest to the fly side of the flag. Inside the blue diagonal sits a Southern Cross constellation whilst inside the green section sits a golden bosun bird. In the centre of the flag is a gold circle containing a green outline of Christmas Island within it. The flag's colours of blue and green are intended to symbolise the sea and the land respectively whilst the golden bosun bird is considered a symbol of Christmas Island. The Southern Cross constellation is a symbol of Australia and the southern hemisphere. The ratio of the Christmas Island flag is 1:2.

The flag of Christmas Island has its roots in 1986 when the Christmas Island Assembly instigated a competiton to design a flag for the territory. The winning design was created by Tony Couch, a Sydneysider who had worked on Christmas Island, from a pool of 69 entries. The new flag of Christmas Island was unofficially adopted on 14 April 1986; however, the flag design was not made official until 26 January 2002 (Australia Day).