Three green diamonds appear in the center of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ flag.
The diamonds are arranged in a V shape within the gold central band of the blue, gold, and green triband. The V points to the first letter of “Vincent,” while the gems also recall Saint Vincent’s nickname, the “Gems of the Antilles,” sometimes expanded to the “Jewels of the Caribbean.”
The modern flag was formally adopted on 12 October 1985. It replaced an earlier independent-era design that placed the national coat of arms on a breadfruit leaf. That older emblem was considered difficult to recognize from a distance and costly or complicated to reproduce, so Swiss graphic artist Julien van der Wal developed the diamond design.
The colors carry their own symbolism: blue represents the sky and sea, gold evokes sunshine, sand, and the people’s bright spirit, and green reflects the islands’ vegetation and vitality. The diamonds are therefore both a visual letterform and a national nickname made into a flag emblem.