Flag: St. Barthélemy Emoji

The flag of Saint-Barthélemy, a 25 km² volcanic island in the northern Lesser Antilles, 200 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 25 km southeast of Saint-Martin. Known internationally as Saint Barth or St. Barts, the island is home to roughly 11,600 people and is one of the most densely luxury-adjacent destinations in the world. The official flag of Saint-Barth is the French tricolore 🇫🇷, since Saint-Barth is an overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer, COM) of France since July 15, 2007, when it split from Guadeloupe's administrative territory on the same law that separated 🇲🇫 Saint-Martin. Most emoji platforms render 🇧🇱 as a local flag variant showing the coat of arms on a white field: a shield split into three horizontal stripes with three gold fleurs-de-lis on blue at the top (France), a white Maltese cross on red in the middle (the Knights of Malta, who administered the island 1651 to 1665), and three gold crowns on blue at the bottom (Sweden, which ruled Saint-Barth from 1784 to 1878). Two pelicans support the shield.

The Swedish chapter is Saint-Barth's most distinctive historical fingerprint. In 1784, one of Louis XVI's ministers ceded the island to Sweden in exchange for trading rights in the port of Gothenburg. The French port of Le Carénage was renamed Gustavia after King Gustav III. Under Swedish rule, Gustavia became a free port: by the end of the 19th century, roughly 1,330 ships were visiting each year, carrying goods and contraband between the neutral Swedish port and the warring British, French, Dutch, and American ports nearby. Sweden sold the island back to France on March 16, 1878, after 94 years; the Swedish flag was lowered and the tricolore raised at the governor's house in Gustavia. The Three Crowns stayed on the coat of arms, and Gustavia kept its name.

Socially, 🇧🇱 runs on four engines. The first is the superyacht New Year's Eve: Gustavia harbor hosts 180 to 327 superyachts on December 31 annually, including the largest private vessels in the world. The 2025 to 2026 gathering set records, with Jeff Bezos's 127-metre Koru anchored alongside Lürssen's 122-metre Kismet, Oceanco's 110-metre Kaos, and Lürssen's 138-metre Rising Sun. The second is luxury tourism: Saint-Barth is consistently ranked the top luxury Airbnb destination in the world and attracts 70,000 hotel-villa visitors plus 130,000 boat arrivals per year. The third is celebrity culture, traceable to Jimmy Buffett first visiting in 1978 and describing Gustavia as 'the perfect place to spend eternity' before writing Cheeseburger in Paradise about Le Select, the Gustavia bar still operating today. The fourth is Les Voiles de Saint-Barth Richard Mille, the mid-April sailing regatta running since 2010. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015 as the regional indicator sequence U+1F1E7 U+1F1F1U+1F1E7 U+1F1F1.

🇧🇱 has three big posting windows, all tied to the island's luxury-tourism calendar. The December-to-early-January superyacht high season is the biggest by a wide margin. Villa bookings open in March of the previous year for the last two weeks of December and the first week of January, and rates go as high as 200,000 euros per week for the most exclusive properties. Gustavia harbor accommodated 327 vessels in late December 2025, the largest recorded gathering in the island's history. December 31 fireworks over the harbor are broadcast on French national TV and on yacht charter industry feeds worldwide.

Les Voiles de Saint-Barth Richard Mille in mid-April is the island's flagship sailing event, running since 2010. Roughly 50 to 70 boats (monohulls from J/120s up to 100-foot racing sleds) compete in five days of racing between Saint-Barth, Colombier, and the Anguilla Channel. Drawing a high-net-worth yachting crowd plus professional sailors from Auckland to Newport. The regatta peaks the 🇧🇱 flag on sailing-media feeds globally.

August 24 Saint Barthélemy's Day is the island's most-local window of the year. A regatta, fireworks over Gustavia harbor, and a Catholic mass at the Église Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption mark the feast day of Saint Bartholomew, the apostle whose name Columbus gave the island on his November 21, 1493 sighting (named for his brother, Bartolomeo Columbus). The single window when 🇧🇱 flies strictly for local identity rather than luxury tourism.

Baseline 🇧🇱 usage runs on French fine-dining content (Saint-Barth's restaurant scene punches far above its 11K-person weight), on the Jimmy Buffett tribute circuit (he died September 1, 2023; the island still observes the anniversary), on celebrity winter-vacation coverage (Bezos, Aniston, DiCaprio, Mick Jagger, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z have all been photographed on Saint-Barth in recent years), and on real-estate content (Saint-Barth villa prices per square metre rival Monaco). Hurricane-related posts surge during September: Hurricanes Irma (2017) and Maria damaged the island, though less severely than Saint-Martin.

• 🏛️
  Capital: [Gustavia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavia,_Saint_Barth%C3%A9lemy) (pop. ~3,100). Renamed in 1785 after Swedish King Gustav III during the 94-year Swedish colonial period (1784 to 1878). The only French Caribbean town named after a Swedish monarch.
• 👥
  Population: ~11,600 (2026 est.). [January 2023 census](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Barth%C3%A9lemy): 10,660. One of the smallest populations in the Caribbean.
• 🗺️
  Area: 25 km² (9.7 sq mi). Volcanic origin, arid climate, no rivers. Highest point: Morne du Vitet (286 m).
• 💱
  Currency: Euro (€) since 2002. Saint-Barth left the EU customs area on January 1, 2012 but kept the euro.
• 🗣️
  Languages: French (official). English (universal second language for tourism and commerce). Traditional Saint-Barth French patois is still spoken by older residents in Corossol and Vitet.
• 🏛️
  Government: [Overseas collectivity (COM)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Barth%C3%A9lemy) since July 15, 2007. Left EU customs on January 1, 2012 (OCT status). 19-seat Territorial Council. Préfet shared with Saint-Martin. 1 deputy (shared), 1 senator in Paris.
• 📞
  Calling code: +590 (shared with Guadeloupe and Saint-Martin from the pre-2007 administrative unity).
• ⏰
  Time zone: AST (UTC-4), no daylight saving. Same as Atlantic Standard Time year-round.
• 🌐
  Internet TLD: .bl (delegated 2007, rarely used in practice; .com and .fr dominate).

Foods that show up next to 🇧🇱

Landmarks that anchor travel content

Columbus sighted the island on November 21, 1493 and named it after his brother Bartolomeo; the name became Saint-Barthélemy in French. Spain made no settlement; the French West India Company took control in 1648 and sold it to the Knights of Malta in 1651, who ran it for 14 years before the French Crown repurchased it in 1665. The plantation economy never took strong root: Saint-Barth's 25 km² of rocky volcanic terrain, arid climate, and scarce fresh water made sugar impossible. Small-scale salt harvesting (at the Grande Saline pond), subsistence farming, and local fishing defined the 17th and 18th century economy.

In 1784, the island changed hands in one of the most consequential small-colonial trades of the 18th century. Louis XVI's minister ceded Saint-Barthélemy to Sweden in exchange for trading rights in Gothenburg and a share in Swedish East India Company trade. The Swedish takeover was peaceful; the existing French-speaking population stayed on the island and kept French as the household language. The Swedes renamed Le Carénage as Gustavia, built up the harbor, declared it a free port in 1785, and watched as Gustavia became one of the busiest trading ports in the Caribbean: by the end of the 18th century, 1,330 ships a year visited the free port, carrying sanctioned and contraband goods between the European empires' warring Caribbean possessions. Swedish rule lasted 94 years.

On August 10, 1877, France and Sweden signed a transfer agreement in Paris; it was ratified in Stockholm on November 9, 1877 and in Paris on March 4, 1878. On March 16, 1878, the Swedish flag was lowered at the governor's house in Gustavia and the French tricolore went up. Gustavia kept its name; the three Swedish crowns stayed on the coat of arms. The island reverted to French administration under Guadeloupe. Economically, the 20th century was quiet: fishing, agriculture, and a tiny tourism industry centered on Rémy de Haenen's pioneering 1945 airplane flights between Saint-Martin and the Saint-Jean beach.

The luxury-tourism transformation began in the 1970s when Jimmy Buffett sailed in aboard his 48-foot Euphoria II in 1978 and David Rockefeller built a vacation home at Columbier. The Rothschild and Agnelli families followed. By the 1990s, Saint-Barth was established as the Caribbean's highest-end destination, and the December 31 superyacht convention in Gustavia harbor had become an annual fixture. The February 22, 2007 law that broke Saint-Barth out of Guadeloupe (alongside Saint-Martin) created the modern COM. The January 1, 2012 shift out of EU customs status further freed the island's cross-Atlantic trade with the United States, especially for yacht charter and luxury goods.

• 🎆
  December 31: Superyacht New Year's Eve: Not a public holiday, but the island's single biggest annual event. [180+ superyachts](https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/news/superyachts-sightings-in-st-barths-new-years-eve-2026) in Gustavia harbor. Midnight fireworks over the harbor visible from every beach on the west coast.
• 🎉
  January 1: New Year's Day: Public holiday. The peak of the luxury winter high season. Villa rates at their annual peak through the first week of January.
• 🐣
  April 3 + 6, 2026: Good Friday and Easter Monday: Public holidays. Family beach picnics on Anse de Grande Saline and Anse du Gouverneur on Easter Monday.
• ⛵
  April 13 to 18, 2026: Les Voiles de Saint-Barth Richard Mille: Five days of racing. Monohulls from J/120s up to 100-foot racing sleds. Running since 2010 under Richard Mille sponsorship. The island's second-biggest international window after NYE.
• 👷
  May 1: Labour Day: Public holiday.
• 🕊️
  May 8: Victory in Europe Day: Public holiday. Ceremony at Gustavia war memorial.
• 🇫🇷
  July 14: Bastille Day: French national holiday. Small parade in Gustavia, Fort Oscar ceremony. The French Navy occasionally sends a vessel for the occasion.
• 🏖️
  August 15: Assumption Day: Public holiday. Most of the island observes at the beach.
• ⛪
  August 24: Saint Barthélemy's Day: [The island's patron saint feast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Barth%C3%A9lemy). Regatta, Mass at Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, fireworks over Gustavia harbor. Not a French national holiday but widely observed as Saint-Barth's most local cultural moment.
• 🕯️
  November 1: All Saints' Day: Public holiday. Quieter tradition than on Guadeloupe or Martinique.
• 🕊️
  November 11: Armistice Day: Public holiday. Ceremony at the Gustavia war memorial.
• 🎄
  December 25: Christmas Day: Public holiday. Réveillon dinners at the island's restaurants start the winter peak.

• •Saint-Barth was Swedish for 94 years (1784 to 1878), the only Caribbean possession Sweden ever held. The trade was initiated by one of Louis XVI's ministers, who wanted trading rights in the Swedish port of Gothenburg in exchange. The swap looks absurd in retrospect; Sweden got a strategic free-port base in the Caribbean, France got an unremarkable Baltic concession.
• •Gustavia is the only French Caribbean town named after a Swedish king. King Gustav III was a reform-minded autocrat assassinated at a Stockholm masked ball in 1792; Gustavia was established in 1785 during his reign and kept its name after the 1878 reversion to France.
• •Saint-Barth's Rémy de Haenen Airport has a 650-metre runway that sits at beach level, with a 17-degree descent over the Col de la Tourmente ridge. It is one of the four most dangerous commercial airports in the world by standard industry rankings. Only specially certified pilots are allowed to land; flights are mostly from Saint-Martin (SXM) on 15-seat Cessnas and Twin Otters.
• •Jimmy Buffett's 1978 visit to Saint-Barth produced 'Cheeseburger in Paradise', written about the cheeseburger and beer he ordered at Le Select bar in Gustavia. Le Select is still open on Rue de la France; the menu still has cheeseburgers; the spot is still the island's most-photographed authentic local bar.
• •Saint-Barth's French-side population is roughly 70% white, the highest share of any Caribbean island except the Cayman Islands. The demography is a legacy of the island's post-1878 economic isolation: no sugar plantation economy developed, no mass slave importation occurred, and the small population that stayed was mostly descended from the original French settlers from 17th-century Normandy and Brittany.
• •Saint-Barth exited the EU customs area on January 1, 2012, becoming an Overseas Country and Territory (OCT) rather than an outermost region (OMR). The switch was designed to simplify yacht and luxury-goods trade with the United States. Saint-Barth kept the euro, kept French citizenship, kept full EU membership for its residents, but exited the customs union.
• •The island's three-flag coat of arms has the three fleurs-de-lis (France), a Maltese cross (the Knights of Malta, 1651 to 1665), and the Three Crowns (Sweden, 1784 to 1878). No other Caribbean territory has three distinct European sovereignties represented simultaneously on its heraldic arms.
• •Saint-Barth is the single most expensive luxury villa market in the Caribbean. Top-tier villas rent for 150,000 to 200,000 euros per week during the December to January peak. Villa rates for the Christmas-to-New-Year fortnight often list for a million dollars and up, and bookings open in March of the previous year.

• •🇧🇱 is a regional indicator sequence: U+1F1E7U+1F1E7 (B) + U+1F1F1U+1F1F1 (L). ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code: BLBL.
• •Shortcode: :flag_bl::flag_bl: or :saint_barthelemy::saint_barthelemy: on most platforms.
• •The .bl country-code TLD was delegated in 2007 after separation from Guadeloupe but is rarely used. Most Saint-Barth websites use .com, .fr, or .sbh.
• •Saint-Barth shares the +590 calling code with Guadeloupe and Saint-Martin, reflecting the pre-2007 administrative unity. The island's own dialing prefix within +590 is +590-590.

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