United States Flag

How to identify it

Thirteen alternating red and white horizontal stripes with a blue rectangle in the upper flagpole corner containing 50 small white stars in nine offset rows. Counting stripes and stars distinguishes it from similar designs.

Design and construction

Proportions

10:19 for flags manufactured for the federal government

Adoption and legal status

4 July 1960, when the 50th star was added for Hawaii

Construction

Executive Order 10834 (1959) fixes the proportions of the blue corner panel, the stripe widths and the exact star positions: nine rows of stars alternating six and five.

Officially documented meaning

Federal law (4 U.S.C. §1) prescribes thirteen stripes for the original states and one star for each current state, but it assigns no meaning to the colours.

Commonly repeated interpretation

Not official: Red for valour, white for purity and blue for justice is repeated everywhere. It comes from Charles Thomson's 1782 report on the Great Seal of the United States, not from any law about the flag.

History of the design

The Flag Resolution of 1777 set thirteen stripes and thirteen stars without fixing their arrangement, so early flags vary widely. After two extra stripes were added for Vermont and Kentucky, an 1818 act returned the stripe count to thirteen permanently and made the star count follow the number of states. The present arrangement is the 27th official version.

Similar flags

Compare the details that separate these designs.

• 
  Liberia

  Liberia has eleven stripes and a single large white star on blue; the US has thirteen stripes and fifty stars.

• 
  Malaysia

  Malaysia has fourteen stripes and a crescent with a 14-pointed star in the canton, not stars alone.

Sources