Flag: Barbados Emoji

The flag of Barbados: three vertical panels of ultramarine, gold, ultramarine, with a black broken trident head centered on the gold. Designed by Grantley W. Prescod and chosen from more than 1,000 entries in a national competition. It was hoisted for the first time at midnight on November 30, 1966, the moment Barbados cut ties with the British crown and became independent. The trident is the head of Poseidon's spear, pulled straight from the colonial coat of arms where Britannia held it whole. Snapping it into three standalone points is the design's whole argument: the colonial staff is gone, the people inherit the spearhead. The three points stand for three principles of democracy (government of the people, for the people, by the people).

Barbados did two things on November 30 that no other Caribbean nation did quite the same way. It became independent in 1966, and it became a republic exactly 55 years later on November 30, 2021, with Dame Sandra Mason sworn in as the country's first president and Queen Elizabeth II ceremonially retired. The flag did not change. The trident didn't need to. The same flag that flew for 55 years as a Commonwealth realm kept flying as the newest republic in the world.

Socially, 🇧🇧 runs on three engines. The first is Rihanna. She was born Robyn Fenty in Saint Michael, she was declared a National Hero by Prime Minister Mia Mottley at the 2021 republic ceremony, and she carries the flag every time she returns for Crop Over. The second is cricket: Kensington Oval is the Caribbean's test-match mecca, and the Barbadian-heavy West Indies team of the 1970s and 80s still drives nostalgia feeds. The third is the UK diaspora, a Windrush-era community roughly equal in size to the 2001 UK-resident Bajan population of 21,600 plus several generations of British-born Bajans, and centered in Reading, Ipswich, London, and Birmingham. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015 as the regional indicator sequence U+1F1E7 U+1F1E7U+1F1E7 U+1F1E7.

🇧🇧 has three big annual windows. The first is Crop Over, which runs roughly from the third Saturday of June (Ceremonial Delivery of the Last Canes at Pelican Village) through Kadooment Day on the first Monday of August. Kadooment is the climax, a daylong parade of masquerade bands along Spring Garden Highway, and it is the single biggest 🇧🇧 day on social media every year. Rihanna's return in 2017 and again in 2024 with her band Aura turned Kadooment from a regional festival into a global paparazzi event.

The second is November 30, which is now a double anniversary. Independence Day (1966) and Republic Day (2021) fall on the same date, so the whole week of late November becomes a 🇧🇧 corridor across Bajan social. Expect a flag surge from Prime Minister Mia Mottley, from government ministries, and from the diaspora. The third is cricket season. West Indies home tests at Kensington Oval (typically late winter through spring) still draw consistent 🇧🇧 usage from Caribbean cricket Twitter, even during the Windies' lean years.

Beyond those, there's a steady travel-content baseline. 'Little England' stuck as a colonial nickname because the west-coast plantation houses and cricket-on-the-village-green culture were modeled on England, and British travel writers still use it, which keeps 🇧🇧 showing up in UK broadsheet travel sections. Mount Gay Rum, the world's oldest commercial rum distillery (deed 1703, possibly earlier), drives consistent food-and-drink posts. And for Bajan-Americans concentrated in Brooklyn and South Florida, the flag shows up at West Indian Day Carnival on Eastern Parkway (first Monday of September, the American date) and in Caribbean-American Heritage Month (June).

• 🏛️
  Capital: Bridgetown, on the south-west coast. UNESCO site since 2011.
• 👥
  Population: ~283,000 (2025 est.)
• 🗺️
  Area: 431 km² (smaller than the Isle of Wight)
• 💵
  Currency: Barbadian dollar (BBD), pegged at 1.98 to USD since 1975
• 🗣️
  Languages: English (official); Bajan Creole spoken daily
• 🏛️
  Government: Parliamentary republic since November 30, 2021. President Sandra Mason, PM Mia Mottley.
• 📞
  Calling code: +1-246 (North American Numbering Plan)
• ⏰
  Time zone: AST (UTC-4), no daylight saving
• 🌐
  Internet TLD: .bb

Foods that show up next to 🇧🇧

Landmarks that anchor travel content

The flag was designed in a national competition in 1966, held as independence approached. Prime Minister Errol Barrow wanted a flag that did three things: announce the break from Britain, avoid the sugar-and-cricket clichés of colonial heraldry, and stay readable at any size. The brief went out publicly. More than 1,000 entries came back. Grantley W. Prescod won, with a design that traded the complex colonial coat of arms for three flat panels and a single symbol.

The trident did all the work. On the pre-independence coat of arms, Britannia sat on a seashell cart holding Poseidon's trident, with Barbados personified as a kneeling figure below her. Prescod took the trident out of Britannia's hand and broke it, severing the staff and keeping only the spearhead. Breaking the trident was the announcement: the metaphor of Britannia giving the Caribbean her instruments of sea power was retired. The three remaining points were rewritten to stand for the three principles of democracy, a direct echo of the Gettysburg Address ('of the people, by the people, for the people'). That echo was deliberate. Barrow's government deliberately anchored the new republic in a classically liberal-democratic vocabulary rather than a Westminster-monarchy one.

The flag hoisted at midnight on November 30, 1966 at the Garrison Savannah in Bridgetown. The Union Jack came down. Crowds sang 'In Plenty and In Time of Need,' the new national anthem, for the first time. Fifty-five years later, at midnight on November 30, 2021, the flag did not come down. The Royal Standard came down. The anthem was sung again. Sandra Mason took the presidential oath. Prince Charles, standing on stage as representative of his mother the outgoing monarch, acknowledged 'the appalling atrocity of slavery' as part of Barbados's colonial past. Rihanna was named a National Hero the same night, at the age of 33.

• 🎉
  January 1: New Year's Day: Public holiday. Countdown fireworks at Carlisle Bay and Bay Street.
• 👴
  January 21: Errol Barrow Day: Honors [Errol Barrow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errol_Barrow), first PM and 'father of independence.' Wreath-laying at his statue in Independence Square.
• 🐣
  April 3 to 6, 2026: Easter window: Good Friday and Easter Monday. Oistins fish festival runs across the Easter weekend on the south coast.
• 🦸
  April 28, 2026: National Heroes Day: Honors the ten [National Heroes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Heroes_of_Barbados). Rihanna was added on November 30, 2021.
• ⚒️
  May 1: Labour Day: Trade union parades through Bridgetown.
• ☀️
  May 25, 2026: Whit Monday: Pentecost Monday. Beach day on the south coast.
• 🎭
  June to August: Crop Over season: Two-month festival of calypso, soca, pan, and mas. Covers Ceremonial Delivery in late June through Kadooment on the first Monday of August.
• ✊
  August 1: Emancipation Day: Commemorates the August 1, 1834 abolition of slavery across the British Caribbean.
• 🪩
  August 3, 2026: Kadooment Day: Climax of Crop Over. Masquerade bands parade from the National Stadium along Spring Garden Highway. Peak 🇧🇧 window of the year. [Rihanna](https://www.essence.com/lifestyle/travel/rihanna-barbados-carnival/) has jumped with Aura in 2017 and 2024.
• 🇧🇧
  November 30: Independence + Republic Day: Double anniversary since 2021. Flag-raising at Heroes Square, 21-gun salute at the Garrison Savannah, presidential address.
• 🎄
  December 25 and 26: Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

• •Barbados is the only nation in the world with a broken trident on its flag. The design choice is about as close as any national flag gets to a thesis statement.
• •The 2021 republic ceremony happened on the 55th anniversary of independence to the day. Barbados is one of only a handful of countries where Independence Day and Republic Day share the same date.
• •Mount Gay Rum holds the world's oldest surviving distillery deed (1703). Internal research suggests production may have started as early as 1654, which would make it nearly a century older than the second-oldest surviving rum house.
• •Rihanna was named a National Hero of Barbados at age 33, making her one of the youngest people ever to receive the honor. The Order includes Errol Barrow, Grantley Adams, Sir Garfield Sobers, and Nanny of the Maroons.
• •Barbados and New York City both sit at roughly 13° and 40° latitude respectively, but the population swap is Barbadian people going north: more Barbadians live in Brooklyn than in Bridgetown.
• •'Bajan' is the demonym (never 'Barbadian' in everyday speech), and the island nickname 'Little England' dates to the 17th century, when Barbados was the wealthiest sugar-producing colony in the British Empire.
• •The flying fish was once so abundant that Barbados was nicknamed 'the land of flying fish.' Climate change has pushed most of the stock toward Trinidadian waters; Bajan fishers now have to travel further to catch the national dish.
• •Kensington Oval has hosted 43 Test matches since 1930, including the 2007 Cricket World Cup final and the 2010 ICC T20 World Cup final. It's the oldest continuously-used international cricket ground in the Caribbean.

• •🇧🇧 is a regional indicator sequence: U+1F1E7U+1F1E7 (B) + U+1F1E7U+1F1E7 (B). ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code: BBBB.
• •Shortcode: :flag_bb::flag_bb: or :barbados::barbados: on most platforms.
• •The .bb.bb top-level domain is lightly used. Barbadian businesses often prefer .com.bb.com.bb or generic gTLDs.

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