Flag: Antigua & Barbuda Emoji

The flag of Antigua and Barbuda: a red field with a black, blue, white, and gold panel set inside an inverted V. The gold rising sun at the top represents the dawn of a new era. Underneath, the black, blue, and white stripes stand for the African ancestry of the people, the Caribbean Sea, and the white sand beaches. The surrounding red represents the energy of the people, and the V shape reads as victory. The seven rays of the sun represent the six Antiguan parishes plus the island of Barbuda.

The flag was designed by Sir Reginald Samuel, a local artist whose entry won a national competition with more than 600 submissions. It was adopted on February 27, 1967, the day the islands became a state in free association with the United Kingdom. Full independence came 14 years later on November 1, 1981, and the flag carried through unchanged. It remains one of the most narratively packed flag designs in the Caribbean: a full sunrise, a color story, a victory V, and a parish count, all inside one panel.

Socially, 🇦🇬 shows up in three places. Cricket West Indies fans posting about Sir Viv Richards (Antigua's most famous son and the namesake of the North Sound test ground). Antiguan diaspora profiles in New York, London, and Toronto around Carnival, Independence, and Whit Monday. And travel content built around the island's tagline: 365 beaches, one for every day of the year. Added to Emoji 2.0 in 2015 as the regional indicator sequence U+1F1E6 U+1F1ECU+1F1E6 U+1F1EC.

🇦🇬 peaks three times a year. Late July through the first week of August, when Antigua Carnival runs and the J'ouvert pre-dawn paint party lights up St John's. Late April and early May during Antigua Sailing Week, one of the world's largest regattas, which fills English Harbour and Nelson's Dockyard with superyacht crews posting from the docks. And November 1, Independence Day, when the diaspora in Brooklyn, London, and Toronto floods feeds with the flag.

There's also a steady baseline of cricket posts. Sir Vivian Richards captained the dominant West Indies side of the 1980s, and any time the Windies play a test at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound, 🇦🇬 trends inside Caribbean Twitter. Travel content is the other big bucket: the '365 beaches' line is permanent flag bait, as are the luxury resorts (Jumby Bay, Hermitage Bay) that catch the honeymoon market.

The island's Citizenship by Investment Program also drives unusual volume. CBI marketing agencies post 🇦🇬 on LinkedIn and Twitter around passport-ranking news, which is why the flag sees more B2B usage than any of its OECS neighbors.

• 🏛️
  Capital: St John's, on the west coast of Antigua
• 👥
  Population: ~94,700 (2024 est.)
• 🗺️
  Area: 442 km² (Antigua 281, Barbuda 161)
• 💵
  Currency: East Caribbean dollar (XCD), pegged at 2.70 to USD since 1976
• 🗣️
  Languages: English (official); Antiguan and Barbudan Creole spoken daily
• 📞
  Calling code: +1-268 (North American Numbering Plan)
• ⏰
  Time zone: AST (UTC-4), no daylight saving
• 🌐
  Internet TLD: .ag (also used by Aktiengesellschaft / German corporate domains)

Foods that show up next to 🇦🇬

Landmarks that anchor travel content

The flag was the winning entry in a 1966 public competition, selected from more than 600 submissions. The designer was Sir Reginald Samuel, a schoolteacher, painter, and sculptor from All Saints village. His brief was to capture the shift from colony to self-government. He responded with a single packed composition: a red field, a rising sun as the obvious dawn metaphor, a V for victory, and a three-color panel encoding African heritage, the sea, and the sand.

The flag was first flown on February 27, 1967, the day the West Indies Act took effect and Antigua and Barbuda became an associated state of the UK. Full independence was declared on November 1, 1981, under prime minister Vere Bird. The flag did not change. That continuity is unusual in the Caribbean, where many post-colonial flags went through design revisions in the 1970s and 80s. Samuel's composition was accepted as settled from the start.

The flag holds one small asymmetry that most Caribbean flags don't: the sun has exactly seven rays, not five or eight. Six rays represent Antigua's six parishes (Saint John, Saint Mary, Saint Paul, Saint Peter, Saint Philip, Saint George), and the seventh represents Barbuda. That single extra ray is the flag's quiet acknowledgement that this is a two-island nation, not an island with an afterthought attached.

• 🎉
  January 1: New Year's Day: Public holiday. Countdown fireworks in St John's harbour.
• 🐣
  April 3 to 6, 2026: Easter window: Good Friday, Easter Monday. Peach-season travel to Antigua's south-coast resorts.
• ⛵
  April 25 to May 5, 2026: Sailing Week: [Antigua Sailing Week](https://www.sailingweek.com/). Classic Yacht Regatta runs just before. Nelson's Dockyard fills with superyacht crews and maxi racers.
• ⚒️
  May 4, 2026: Labour Day: First Monday of May. Trade union parades through St John's.
• ☀️
  May 25, 2026: Whit Monday: Pentecost Monday. Picnics at Half Moon Bay and Pigeon Point.
• 🎭
  July 27 to August 4, 2026: Antigua Carnival: 'The Caribbean's Greatest Summer Festival.' Calypso Monarch, Panorama steel-pan, J'ouvert at 4am on Monday August 3. Peak 🇦🇬 window of the year.
• 🔥
  August 3, 2026: J'ouvert: The pre-dawn paint, oil, and mud street party. Rooted in the August 1, 1834 abolition of slavery.
• 🙏
  September 10, 2026: National Day of Prayer: Introduced in the 2000s. Public holiday observed with interfaith services islandwide.
• 🇦🇬
  November 1, 2026: Independence Day: Commemorates independence from the UK on November 1, 1981. Parade through St John's, national awards at Antigua Recreation Ground.
• 👴
  December 9: V.C. Bird Day: Honors Sir Vere Cornwall Bird, first prime minister and 'father of the nation.'
• 🎄
  December 25 and 26: Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

• •Antigua claims 365 beaches, one for every day of the year. The figure is sometimes disputed (rigorous counts land closer to 300), but it's the tagline everyone remembers.
• •The black pineapple (on the national coat of arms) is grown mainly on Antigua's south coast and is one of the sweetest pineapple varieties in the world. It's harvested when the skin is still dark green, which is how it got the name.
• •Nelson's Dockyard at English Harbour is the only continuously working Georgian-era dockyard in the world. It was named UNESCO World Heritage in 2016.
• •Hurricane Irma wrecked 95% of Barbuda's buildings in September 2017 as a Category 5. The island was briefly evacuated entirely. Rebuilding is still ongoing eight years later.
• •Antigua and Barbuda has the highest per capita fish consumption in the West Indies, according to Lonely Planet.

• •🇦🇬 is a regional indicator sequence: U+1F1E6U+1F1E6 (A) + U+1F1ECU+1F1EC (G). ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code: AGAG.
• •Shortcode: :flag_ag::flag_ag: or :antigua_barbuda::antigua_barbuda: on most platforms.
• •The .ag.ag top-level domain is frequently used by German 'Aktiengesellschaft' (AG) corporate sites, which can skew Antigua-related search traffic.

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