The stars in Samoa’s blue canton are white. They form the Southern Cross, a constellation especially familiar on flags of countries in the Southern Hemisphere.
Samoa’s flag has a red field with a blue rectangle in the upper hoist-side corner. Inside that canton are five white five-pointed stars: four larger stars and one smaller star. The arrangement represents the Southern Cross, also known as Crux, which is visible in the southern night sky and appears on several Pacific national flags.
The flag was adopted on 24 February 1949 and remained Samoa’s national flag after independence in 1962. Its design was originally created in 1948 by Tupua Tamasese Meaʻole and Malietoa Tanumafili II, both of whom later served as Samoa’s heads of state. The smaller fifth star was added to the design in 1949; the first version had only four stars.
The blue canton can cause confusion with the flag of New Zealand, which also uses red-and-white Southern Cross stars on a blue field. Samoa’s stars are white without red borders, and its main field is red. American Samoa has a completely different design featuring an eagle.