Flag: St. Pierre & Miquelon Emoji

The flag of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a French overseas collectivity of eight islands in the North Atlantic, just 19 km off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. It's the last piece of France in North America, the sole surviving fragment of New France, which once stretched from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Mississippi River.

The unofficial flag (France's tricolore is the official one) features a blue field with a yellow ship, the Grande Hermine, which carried Jacques Cartier to the islands on June 15, 1536. Three panels along the hoist represent the origins of most inhabitants: the Basque ikurriña, the Breton ermine banner, and the Norman leopards. About 5,800 people live here, using euros, speaking French, and taking a 55-minute ferry to Newfoundland.

This emoji is vanishingly rare in the wild. When it appears, it's usually from the tiny local community, travel bloggers visiting "France in North America," or people discussing the territory's outsized history: Prohibition-era rum running, a Christmas Eve military seizure in WWII, and a bizarre baguette-shaped maritime zone.

🇵🇲 barely registers on any social media platform's usage metrics. With a population under 6,000, this might be the least-used flag emoji in the entire Unicode set. When it does appear, the contexts are remarkably specific: travel influencers discovering you can take a ferry from Newfoundland to "France" in under an hour, Prohibition history buffs discussing Al Capone's bootlegging operations through the islands, and viewers of the CBC crime drama *Saint-Pierre*), which premiered in January 2025 and became CBC's most-watched new series of the year.

The show's success may be the single biggest driver of awareness for this emoji. Before Saint-Pierre, most people outside Newfoundland and the French government had never heard of the place.

Saint Pierre and Miquelon's history is absurdly eventful for eight islands with fewer residents than a mid-sized high school. Jacques Cartier claimed them for France on June 15, 1536, though Basque and Breton fishermen were already there when he arrived. The islands changed hands between France and Britain seven times before France took permanent control in 1816.

The economy ran on cod. For centuries, Grand Banks fishing sustained the islands and attracted seasonal workers from Normandy, Brittany, and the Basque Country. The three flags on the territorial flag (Basque, Breton, Norman) still honor these founding populations. Then the 1992 cod moratorium wiped out the industry overnight.

But the wildest chapter was Prohibition. From 1920 to 1933, Saint Pierre transformed from a struggling fishing village into North America's biggest liquor warehouse. Over 4 million liters of whiskey, plus hundreds of thousands of cases of wine, champagne, brandy, and rum flowed through the islands annually. Al Capone personally visited in 1926 to meet local businessman Henri Morazé and suggested replacing noisy wooden crates with jute bags for quieter transhipment. When Prohibition ended in 1933, the boom evaporated overnight.

Then came World War II. The Vichy government controlled the islands after France fell in 1940, making Saint Pierre and Miquelon the only Axis-aligned territory in North America. On Christmas Eve 1941, Charles de Gaulle ordered Admiral Muselier to seize the islands. The operation lasted 30 minutes. A plebiscite the next day showed 98% support for Free France. The US State Department called it a "provocation," but 125 American luminaries including Carl Sandburg and Helen Keller publicly backed de Gaulle.

Regional Indicator Sequence U+1F1F5U+1F1F5 (P) + U+1F1F2U+1F1F2 (M), matching Saint Pierre and Miquelon's ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code "PM". Added in Emoji 2.0 (2015). On Windows, displays as "PM" text. Despite having a population under 6,000, Saint Pierre and Miquelon gets its own flag emoji because the Regional Indicator system maps to ISO country codes, not population thresholds.

1. 1536Jacques Cartier claims the islands for France on June 15, finding Basque and Breton fishermen already there↗
2. 1816France takes permanent control after the islands changed hands seven times between France and Britain
3. 1920US Prohibition begins; Saint Pierre transforms into North America's liquor warehouse
4. 1926Al Capone personally visits to arrange bootlegging logistics with local businessman Henri Morazé
5. 1941Free French forces seize islands from Vichy control in 30-minute Christmas Eve operation↗
6. 1982Unofficial territorial flag designed by André Paturel, featuring the Grande Hermine and three ancestral flags↗
7. 1992Cod moratorium devastates the fishing economy; France-Canada maritime boundary settled, giving France a 'baguette-shaped' EEZ corridor
8. 2015Flag: St. Pierre & Miquelon formalized in Emoji 2.0↗
9. 2025CBC's crime drama Saint-Pierre premieres, becoming the network's most-watched new series↗

Saint Pierre and Miquelon exists in a strange cultural limbo between France and Canada. Residents are French citizens who vote in French presidential elections, use euros, and follow French law. But they're 19 km from Newfoundland and 4,000 km from Paris. Many residents have Canadian relatives. The ferry to Fortune, Newfoundland takes 55 minutes; the flight to Paris takes about 8 hours (via Halifax or Montreal).

The islands use French time (UTC-3, which puts them 30 minutes ahead of Newfoundland, a territory already on a half-hour offset). They drive on the right. Shops close from noon to 2 PM for lunch, just like in mainland France. The euro is official, but most businesses accept Canadian dollars.

For Newfoundlanders, 🇵🇲 represents a quirky neighbor you can visit by ferry. For French people, it represents a distant curiosity most can't locate on a map. For history buffs, it's Al Capone's liquor depot and De Gaulle's Christmas Eve raid.

• •Saint Pierre and Miquelon is the last remnant of New France in North America, the sole surviving fragment of a colonial empire that once spanned from the St. Lawrence to Louisiana.
• •Al Capone personally visited in 1926 to streamline bootlegging operations. Over 4 million liters of whiskey flowed through annually during Prohibition.
• •The islands changed hands between France and Britain seven times before France kept them for good in 1816.
• •De Gaulle's Free French seized the islands from Vichy control on Christmas Eve 1941 in 30 minutes. It was the only Axis-aligned territory in North America.
• •The 1992 maritime boundary ruling gave France a baguette-shaped economic zone, a narrow 200-mile corridor entirely surrounded by Canadian waters.
• •Population: 5,819 (2022 census). The islands use euros, French law, and the metric system, despite being 19 km from Newfoundland.
• •CBC's Saint-Pierre premiered January 2025 and became the network's most-watched new series), probably making more people aware of this territory than any event since Prohibition.

• •***Saint-Pierre* (CBC, 2025)** — The crime drama set and filmed on the islands became CBC's biggest new show), starring Allan Hawco and Joséphine Jobert. Season 2 launches January 2026. The show draws directly from the territory's rum-running past and Franco-Canadian cultural collision.
• •Prohibition bootlegging hub (1920-1933) — The Smithsonian documented how Saint Pierre transformed from a struggling fishing village into the largest liquor warehouse in North America. Al Capone visited personally.
• •The Christmas Eve liberation (1941) — The International Churchill Society covered the 30-minute Free French seizure under the title "When Mice Roared." The diplomatic fallout between De Gaulle, Roosevelt, and Churchill lasted months.

• •🇵🇲 is Regional Indicator Sequence U+1F1F5U+1F1F5 + U+1F1F2U+1F1F2. ISO code: PMPM.
• •On Windows, renders as "PM" text, which can be confusing since PM also means afternoon. Context matters.
• •Shortcodes: :flag_pm::flag_pm: (Slack), :st_pierre_miquelon::st_pierre_miquelon: (Discord).

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