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Mistaken Cook Islands Flag

Kuki Airani

image by Željko Heimer

Mistaken Flag with light blue field

See also:

Cook Islands

Mistaken Flag with light blue field

This is a mistaken image of the Cook Islands flag, formerly shown both on FOTW and on the Cook Islands website, showing the field as a light blue, rather than a dark one, as in most Blue Ensigns.

Santiago Dotor, 9 December 2003

Evidently a single shade of the blue is present in the Cook Islands' flag — the blue of the field is identical to that in Union Flag.

Jan Zrzavy, 14 October 2002

I had to check the Cook Islands flag as they were competing in the Commonwealth Games. They were quite happy with a standard British blue ensign defaced with the circle of stars. That would make the blue Pantone 280.

Graham Bartram, 16 October 2002

I would guess the problem comes from the use of the term royal blue in the Cook Islands flag law. In popular usage, at least in the United States, this connotes a bright blue, more or less FOTW regular blue (B). But as David Prothero points out, royal blue is also the official designation of the blue in the Union Flag and British blue ensign, which we have agreed is FOTW very-very dark blue (B+++).

Joseph McMillan, 16 October 2002

Daniel Day remembers this flag being flown at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games, "along with talks of independence from the British Commonwealth in 2000." However, James Dignan has seen only dark blue flags at recent Olympic and Commonwealth Games, and several people pointed out that the Cook Islands have not talked about leaving the Commonwealth of Nations, the members of which are already independent nations.
August 2005