Flag: Jamaica Emoji

The flag of Jamaica: a gold diagonal cross (saltire) dividing the flag into four triangles, green at top and bottom, black at left and right. The official motto encoded in the design: 'The sun shineth, the land is green and the people are strong and creative.'

This flag holds a world record: it's the only sovereign nation flag that contains no red, white, or blue. (Mauritania had this distinction too until 2017 when it added red stripes.) The saltire design was inspired by Scotland's flag, suggested by a Scottish Presbyterian missionary who was friends with Jamaica's first Prime Minister.

Jamaica's cultural output relative to its size (2.8 million people) is staggering. Reggae, dancehall, ska, and dub originated here. Bob Marley is one of the most recognized humans in history. Usain Bolt holds the 100m world record. Cool Runnings made a bobsled team immortal. Jerk chicken is a global dish. Blue Mountain Coffee sells for $50+ a pound. And the Rastafari movement, born in 1930s Jamaica, spread Ethiopian flag colors and dreadlocks across the world.

🇯🇲 is one of the most-used Caribbean flag emojis. It appears in reggae and dancehall posts, Caribbean food content, Jamaican Independence Day celebrations (August 6), athletic events (especially sprinting), and in the bios of the massive Jamaican diaspora in the US, UK, and Canada.

The flag shows up year-round in music contexts. Dancehall's TikTok virality has kept 🇯🇲 trending: Spotify reported 10 billion streams for reggae and dancehall in 2024, with spikes in Germany, Nigeria, and Japan. The flag also appears during the Notting Hill Carnival in London (the world's second-biggest street carnival after Rio), which has deep Jamaican roots.

In the UK specifically, 🇯🇲 carries Windrush generation pride. The 1948 arrival of HMT Empire Windrush brought 492 Jamaicans to Britain, kicking off a migration that shaped British culture from music to food to language.

• 🏛️
  Capital: Kingston (17.97°N, 76.79°W)
• 👥
  Population: ~2.83 million (2024)
• 🗺️
  Area: 10,991 km² (the 3rd-largest Caribbean island)
• 💵
  Currency: Jamaican dollar (JMD, J$)
• 🗣️
  Languages: English (official), Jamaican Patois (Patwa, daily)
• 📞
  Calling code: +1-876
• ⏰
  Time zone: EST (UTC−5), no DST
• 🌐
  Internet TLD: .jm

Foods that show up next to 🇯🇲

Landmarks that anchor travel content

Jamaica's flag was adopted on August 6, 1962, the day the country gained independence from Britain after over 300 years of colonial rule. The road to that flag is its own story.

A national design competition in 1961 failed to produce a winner. A bipartisan committee of the House of Representatives took over the task in early 1962. The original design had horizontal stripes, but it looked too much like Tanganyika's flag (now part of Tanzania), so the committee switched to a diagonal cross (saltire). The Scottish connection wasn't accidental: Rev William McGhie, a Presbyterian missionary from Scotland, was a friend of PM Alexander Bustamante and suggested the saltire, which echoes Scotland's flag.

The colors carry heavy symbolism. Black represents the strength and creativity of the Jamaican people. Gold represents the sunlight and natural wealth. Green represents the lush vegetation. An earlier interpretation was 'hardships there are but the land is green and the sun shineth,' which was later revised to the more empowering version still used today.

Jamaica's independence came out of centuries of resistance. The island's Maroon communities, descended from enslaved people who escaped Spanish and British plantations, fought two wars against the British (1728-1739 and 1795-1796) and won their freedom through treaties. The Baptist War of 1831-1832, a massive slave rebellion, helped push the British Parliament to abolish slavery across the empire in 1834.

🇯🇲 was added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.

In Jamaica itself, the flag is deeply tied to independence pride and national identity. August 6 (Independence Day) and Emancipation Day (August 1) are the biggest flag-waving occasions.

In the UK, 🇯🇲 carries Windrush generation weight. Brixton, South London, is the heart of British Jamaican culture. The Notting Hill Carnival's reggae and dancehall sound systems are where 🇯🇲 appears most in British social media.

In the US, Jamaican communities in Brooklyn (Flatbush), the Bronx, and South Florida use 🇯🇲 as a diaspora identity marker. There are about 1.17 million Jamaican-Americans, concentrated in New York (416,000) and Florida.

Globally, 🇯🇲 is used loosely by non-Jamaicans in music and marijuana contexts, which sometimes annoys Jamaicans who see their national flag reduced to a weed symbol.

• 🛠️
  May 23: Labour Day: Community work day. Schools get repainted, public spaces cleaned. A rest day that isn't really a rest day.
• ⛓️‍💥
  August 1: Emancipation Day: Marks the 1838 end of slavery in the British Empire. Restored as a public holiday in 1997.
• 🎉
  August 6: Independence Day: Independence from the UK in 1962. Grand Gala at the National Stadium, flag-raising at every school. The peak 🇯🇲 posting day of the year.
• 🎖️
  October 19, 2026: National Heroes Day: Honors the seven official National Heroes, from Marcus Garvey to Nanny of the Maroons.
• 🎭
  December 26: Boxing Day: Little Theatre Pantomime opening night. A Kingston theatrical tradition since 1941.

• •Jamaica's flag is the only sovereign nation flag in the world without red, white, or blue. It's been the sole holder of this distinction since Mauritania added red stripes in 2017.
• •The original 1962 flag design had horizontal stripes, but it was scrapped because it looked too much like Tanganyika's flag. The Scottish-inspired saltire was the substitute.
• •Over 80% of Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee is exported to Japan, where it commands extreme premium prices. Jamaica produces less than 1% of global coffee but its Blue Mountain variety sells for $50+ per pound.
• •Usain Bolt's 100m world record of 9.58 seconds has stood since 2009. His peak speed during that run was 44.72 km/h (27.8 mph). He's the only sprinter to win the 100m and 200m at three consecutive Olympics.
• •George Fitch, who created Jamaica's real bobsled team, said about 1% of Cool Runnings is true. 'What is fact is the crash, everything else is fiction.' The movie grossed $155 million anyway.
• •Jamaican Patois borrowed from English, Spanish, Portuguese, and West African languages like Akan. Despite being spoken daily by nearly all Jamaicans, it's not officially recognized. English remains the official language.

• •Bob Marley: One Love (2024 film) grossed over $180M worldwide, reigniting global interest in Marley's story. The film focused on the 1976 assassination attempt and the making of the Exodus album.
• •Cool Runnings (1993) turned Jamaica's 1988 bobsled team into a global cultural reference. George Fitch, who created the real team, told ESPN that about '1% of the movie is true.' The crash was real; carrying the sled was not. The film grossed $155 million.
• •Usain Bolt's triple-triple (100m, 200m, and 4x100m gold at three consecutive Olympics: 2008, 2012, 2016) is considered the greatest individual achievement in Olympic sprinting history. His celebratory lightning bolt pose became a global gesture.
• •Sean Paul's 'Get Busy' (2003) hit #1 in the US, UK, and Australia, becoming the first dancehall track to top three major charts simultaneously. He helped open the door for dancehall's current TikTok-era global moment.
• •Reggae was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2018, recognizing its 'contribution to international discourse on issues of injustice, resistance, love and humanity.'

• •🇯🇲 is a regional indicator sequence: U+1F1EFU+1F1EF (J) + U+1F1F2U+1F1F2 (M). ISO code: JMJM.
• •Shortcode: :flag_jm::flag_jm: or :jamaica::jamaica: on most platforms.

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.