The Union Jack on the Hawaiian Flag

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beneficii
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10 May 2014, 3:58 pm

There are many flags that contain the Union Jack (i.e. the U.K. national flag) in the canton and the vast majority of these flags have a 1:2 proportion, including the Hawaiian flag. However, there is a slight difference with how the official Hawaiian flag depicts the Union Jack in its canton compared to most other current flags that depict the Union Jack in their cantons. Can anyone here answer what the difference is?


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naturalplastic
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11 May 2014, 2:57 pm

Didnt even know that the flag of ANY US state had the Union Jack embedded in it until I read this. Never had a reason to think about the Hawiian state flag before now.

No idea what the answer is to your question. The Union jack in the upper corner of the Hawiian flag looks pretty much the same to me as the Union Jack by itsself looks in Britain, and how it looks in the same corner of the Australian, and New Zealand flags.

However- the union jack is itsself a combination of two flags: The English flag, and the Scottish flag. The former is the Cross of st. George, and the latter the Cross of St. Anthony. The cross of st. anthony crops up in disquised form in atleast three U.S. state flags because of a certain OTHER flag that was also based upon the cross of st. anthony. Can you name those three states that incorporate the scottish half of the Union Jack in their flags?



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11 May 2014, 9:48 pm

I think you mean Cross of St. Andrew, not St. Anthony, and you're discussing saltires in general, not any specific one. Would those states happen to be Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida?

By the way, there is also the Cross of St. Patrick on the U.K. flag; that's why you see the alternating white and red on the saltire.

I will answer the main question of the thread in a mo'.


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13 May 2014, 3:16 am

Duuhhh..

Dont know why I typed "anthony". My own name is "Andrew". Mightve unconsciously blocked the name while typing for some reason. Anyway...

Yes you got it right.

The confederate stars and bars makes a ghostly appearance, and sometimes rather obvious up front apperence, in the modern flags of three former Confederate states. The three you listed: mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. And the confederate battle flag (never the official flag of the CSA- just for use on the battlefield) was an X-shaped cross derived from the Scottish flag.



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17 May 2014, 9:16 pm

Anyway, what makes Hawaii's use of the Union Jack distinctive can be found in the statute creating it §5-19(4)(B):

Quote:
The proportion shall be as follows: ... The jack is half the hoist (width) in breadth and 7-16 the fly in length; ...


http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurren ... 5-0019.htm

Now, let's review some flag terminology; the hoist refers to the sides of the flag that run parallel to the hoist (i.e. the thing the flag is hung on). The fly refers to the "horizontal" dimension (i.e. the sides of the flag that move out away from the hoist). That 7-16, btw, is supposed to be the fraction seven-sixteenths (7/16).

You see, in most flags with the Union Jack that are 1:2, the jack is half the hoist (width) in breadth, just like on Hawaii's flag, but unlike on Hawaii's flag, the jack is half the fly in length, rather than just 7/16, which is just 1/16 short of half. So the Union Jack on Hawaii's flag, unlike those other flags, doesn't go quite half the length of the fly.

Accordingly, the Union Jack on those other flags maintains its 1:2 proportion, identical to the proportion of the U.K. National Flag, but on Hawaii's flag, the Union Jack has instead a 4:7 proportion as a consequence of the flag's design.


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