Flags with Stars

About Stars

The star is the most widely used emblem in modern flag design. Stars appear in dozens of national flags, where they typically stand for political units, ideologies, or guiding principles: the fifty stars of the United States represent the fifty states, the five stars of the Chinese flag represent the unity of the people under the Communist Party, and the single star on the flag of Vietnam, Cuba, or Somalia represents national independence. Five-pointed stars dominate, but you will also find six-pointed stars (Israel), seven-pointed stars (Jordan, Australia), and eight-pointed stars (Azerbaijan). The arrangement varies almost as much as the meaning: stars can sit in a canton, scatter across a field, form a crescent and star pair drawn from Ottoman heraldry, or trace a constellation such as the Southern Cross visible from the southern hemisphere.