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New Zealand

by Zeljko Heimer, 1996-05-21

Civil Ensign
New Zealand Royal Air Force flags
Civil Air Flag
War Flag
New Zealand's first flag
Provinces of New Zealand
Dunedin and Otago
Maori flag
Anthem and flag

New Zealand Civil Ensign

by James Dignan

New Zealand Royal Air Force flags

At air bases and public occasions, the New Zealand Royal Air Force flies a flag identical to the British Royal Air Force, a light blue ensign with a roundel of dark blue, white, and red concentric rings, from outside to inside, except that the NZRAF flag has the letters "NZ" in white on the innermost red disk. The roundel used on the aircraft themselves, however, replaces this innermost red disk with a red silhouette of a kiwi, the New Zealand national symbol, and omits the lettering. When entire flags are used on aircraft, usually in paint, the usual national flag is used.

Stuart Park, 1995-12-18

Civil Air Flag

New Zealand has used an analogue to the British Civil Air Flag, to be used by "British aircraft registered in New Zealand." This flag was adopted for use on 16 November 1938. It is identical to the British Civil Air Flag, a light blue air force ensign with a dark blue cross, fimbriated white, except that it adds four red five-pointed stars in the shape of the Southern Cross in the lower fly quarter. It has generally fallen into disuse in favor of the national flag.

Stuart Park 1995-12-18

War Flag

by James Dignan

New Zealand's First Flag

This flag was the one chosen in March 1834 by the twenty-five Maori chiefs from three suggested by the Governor of New South Wales. It was originally the Cross of St. George, with a canton of dark blue, which itself contained a red cross fimbriated black, each quadrant of this smaller cross featuring a white eight-pointed star. It was gazetted the next year by the British Admiralty, with the eight-pointed stars replaced with five-pointed ones, and the black fimbriation returned to the more heraldrically correct white. It was replaced in 1840 with the current national flag. The flag, without the fimbriation, was then adopted around 1859 by the Shaw Savill and Albion shipping company as their house flag. Also known as the Waitangi Flag, it has appeared in various contexts since.

Stuart Park, 1996-01-29

Provinces of New Zealand

The NZ provinces are provinces in name alone, no longer having any form of self government the way that the Canadian provinces do. They did have for a period during the 1850s-1870s, but neither I nor Stuart Park have managed to find any evidence of separate flags. (Stuart, who works at a large museum in the North Island, is, AFAIK, still trying to find any evidence that any were used).

A bit of background (from memory, so open to correction!): Originally, New Zealand was divided into three provinces, New Ulster, New Munster and New Leinster, which were under the control of the colonial government of New South Wales. After the recognition of New Zealand as a separate colony in 1840, it was decided that a provincial style of government should be set up, and this was formalised in about 1854. Provinces of North Auckland (Northland), South Auckland (Waikato), Gisborne, Hawkes Bay, Taranaki and Wellington (all in the North Island), and Nelson, Marlborough, Westland, Canterbury, Otago and Southland (in the South Island), existed for some or all of the years between then and the 1870s, when the provincial system was abandoned. Each had its own arms, but I am unaware of any flags.

Today, the names (and the title "Province") have no political significance, although many government departments and quangos keep the names of the provinces and keep roughly to the boundaries of the old provinces. The place where they are most evident as being separate areas is in sports contests, notably the national rugby union competition ("The National Provincial Championship"). Banners are, of course, waved by fans at the grounds, and some designs seem to be particularly common for the different provinces. In Otago, for instance, a flag very similar to the Ukraininan one, but with the gold above the blue, is most common. And in Canterbury (the area around Christchurch), a design quartered red and black is most common. There are, however, no standardised designs for provincial flags.

I have heard of one suggestion for an Otago flag, however - a gold saltire on blue. This design is already used as part of the arms of several Otago places and corporations and in the arms of Otago University, and represents the fact that the province was founded by settlers from Scotland, and gained its first wealth from the goldrush of 1861.
James Dignan, 1996-09-12

Dunedin, Otago

by James Dignan Dunedin is the town of the author, Otago the province
Dunedin's flag:
Argent, on a Fess dancettee Vert, between in cief a Castle triple-towered Sable, upon a rock proper issuant from the fess, masoned Argent, windows, vanes and portcullis Gules, and in base a three-masted Lymphad of the third sails furled Azure, flagged of Scotland (viz. Azure a saltire Argent), a Ram's head affrontee proper, horned Or, between two Garbs of the last.

The coat-of-arms also feature two supporters, a Scottish highlander and a Maori warrior, and have the motto "Maiorum Institutis Utendo". The province of Otago has no official flag, although one that is sometimes used (representing this area's Scottish settlement and the mineral wealth of the region is the Scottish flag (Azure, a saltire Argent) with the white of the saltire replaced with gold. (ie, Azure, a saltire Or).
James Dignan

Maori flag

The national holiday in New Zealand, Waitangi day, commemorates the signing of a treaty in 1840 between the British colonists and the Maori tribes of Aotearoa (New Zealand). Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint) the commemorations were disrupted by Maori rights activists unhappy about parts of the treaty which have been poorly honoured over the 155 years since it was signed.
Protests at the Waitangi commemoration site prominently featured several flags representing Maori unity/independence/freedom etc, including the fourth of those I sent as a possible alternative NZ flag. Another flag prominently displayed was the Kotahitanga, of flag of Maori Unity, which is described as follows:

A horizontal tricolor, red over white over black, featuring a circular emblem on the central stripe (and extending slightly onto the other two), nearer the mast than the fly. The emblem contains the work Kotahitanga (Unity, literally something like "of one people", but I'm no expert on the Maori language) curved around a central red circle containing two crossed white mere (clubs) over what looks like a vertical spear or staff.

|-------------------------------------------------------|
|                                                       |
|                                                       |
|                       Red                             |
|                                                       |
|          -------                                      |
|---------/ ----- \-------------------------------------|
|        / /     \ \                                    |
|       | | 0 | 0 | |                  White            |
|       | |  \|/  | |                                   |
|       | | ""|"" | |                                   |
|        \ \  |  / /                                    |
|---------\ ----- /-------------------------------------|
|          -------                                      |
|                                Black                  |
|                                                       |
|                                                       |
|                                                       |
|-------------------------------------------------------|

James Dignan

Anthem and flag

New Zealand's national anthem refers to New Zealand as "Pacific's Triple Star", presumably a reference to the three main islands: North Island, South Island and Stewart Island (while in the flag there are the four stars of Southern Cross).
James Dignan