Wikiwand - Flag of Puerto Rico (2024)

The flag of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Bandera de Puerto Rico), officially known as the flag of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Bandera del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit. 'Flag of the Free Associated State of Puerto Rico'),^[1] represents Puerto Rico and its people. It consists of five equal horizontal stripes, alternating from red to white, with a blue equilateral triangle based on the hoist side bearing a large, sharp, upright, five-pointed white star in the center. The white star stands for the island, the three sides of the triangle for the three branches of the government, the blue for the sky and coastal waters, the red for the blood shed by warriors, and the white for liberty, victory, and peace.^[5] The flag is popularly known as the Monoestrellada (Monostarred), meaning having one star, a single star, or a lone star.^[6][7] It is in the Stars and Stripes flag family.

In September 1868, the Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico launched the Grito de Lares (Cry of Lares) revolt against Spanish rule in the island, carrying as their standard the Bandera del Grito de Lares (Grito de Lares Flag), most commonly known as the Bandera de Lares (Lares flag).^[8] Marking the establishment of a Puerto Rican national consciousness for the first time, the Lares flag is recognized as the first flag of Puerto Rico.^[9]

In December 1895, 27 years after the failed revolt in Lares, exiled members of the committee, settled in New York City and in partnership with exiled Cuban rebels, replaced the Lares flag with the current flag of Puerto Rico as the new revolutionary flag to represent a prospective independent Puerto Rico, basing it on the flag of Cuba, the standard carried by Cubans during their war of independence against Spain. The adoption of the Cuban flag with inverted colors as the new revolutionary flag of Puerto Rico symbolized the strong bonds existing between Cuban and Puerto Rican revolutionaries, and the united independence struggles of Cuba and Puerto Rico as the last two remaining territories of Spain’s once extensive American empire since 1825.^[10][11]

Members of the Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico identified the colors of their new flag as "red", "white", and "blue" but failed to specify any color shades.^[12] Relying on contemporaneous but secondary, oral sources, some historians have presumed that light blue was specifically adopted by the committee members, as their sources claim this was the same shade used on the Lares flag, the first revolutionary flag many of said members had rallied around in 1868.^[4] However, like with the flag of 1895, which appears in one of its oldest color depictions in the early 1900s with a medium blue,^[13] there is no written primary source account specifying the original color shade of blue used on the Lares flag, the only two surviving original renditions of which feature different shades: one uses light blue^[14] and the other dark blue.^[15]

In July 1952, after several failed attempts by the insular elected government of Puerto Rico to formalize the revolutionary flag of 1895 as the standard of island, the government adopted it as the official flag of Puerto Rico with the establishment of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, identifying its colors by law as "red", "white", and "blue" but not specifying any official color shades.^[2][10][16] However, the government began to use a dark blue matching the blue of the American flag as the de facto shade of blue.

In August 1995, the government of Puerto Rico issued a regulation regarding the use of the flag in which it identified the colors to be used as "red", "white", and "blue" but did not specify any official color shades once again.^[1] With its promulgation, the government and people began to use medium blue as the de facto shade of blue, replacing dark blue as the most used color shade. In August 2022, an amendment bill was unsuccessfully introduced in the Puerto Rican Senate which would have established the current medium blue, an azul royal (royal blue), as the official color of the flag.^[17]

To this day, the color shades of the flag of Puerto Rico have never been officially determined by law. Therefore, it is common to see the equilateral triangle of the flag with different shades of blue. Occasionally, the shade displayed is used to show preference on the issue of Puerto Rico’s political status, with light blue, presumably used by pro-independence rebels in 1868 and 1895, representing complete independence from the U.S., and sovereigntism or independence as a sovereign freely associated state with the U.S., dark blue, used by most functionaries since 1952, representing statehood or integration into the U.S. as a state, and medium blue, most commonly used by the government and people since the 1990s, representing the current intermediary status of commonwealth as an unincorporated and organized U.S. territory.

Puerto Rico's flag ranked seventh out of 72 entries in a poll regarding flags of subdivisions of Canada and the United States conducted by the North American Vexillological Association in 2001.^[18]