Flag: Tokelau Emoji

The flag of Tokelau: a deep blue field with a stylised yellow Tokelauan vaka (outrigger canoe) in full sail on the fly, sailing toward four white stars in the hoist that together form the Southern Cross. The canoe symbolises Tokelau's 'journey toward finding the best governance structure for its people'; the Southern Cross is the navigational aid that guides the journey.

Adopted on September 7, 2009, this is one of the newest national flags in the Pacific. Tokelau was the last territory in Polynesia to get its own flag. Before 2009, the New Zealand flag flew on Atafu, Nukunonu, and Fakaofo, the three atolls that make up the country. The General Fono, Tokelau's national assembly, approved the design in May 2008; the Governor-General of New Zealand presented the new flag to the Ulu-o-Tokelau (head of government) at a ceremony on Fakaofo in September 2009.

Tokelau is tiny. Three coral atolls, 12 km² of land total, 1,647 residents at the 2019 census. No airport. Three supply ships per month from Apia, Samoa, 480 km south. No unified capital; the Taupulega (village council) of each of the three atolls takes turns as seat of government every year. The Ulu-o-Tokelau (the title translates as 'Head of Tokelau') rotates every 12 months between the chiefs of the three atolls.

In 2012, Tokelau became the world's first country to generate 100% of its electricity from renewable sources, with three atoll-sized solar arrays replacing the diesel generators that had burned 200 litres of imported fuel per day.

On social, 🇹🇰 is one of the rarest national flag emojis on feeds, partly because the country is small, partly because the diaspora is modest, and partly because the .tk domain was the world's largest free TLD until Freenom shut it down in late 2023, creating a long association between 🇹🇰 and spam domains that has nothing to do with Tokelau.

🇹🇰 was added to Emoji 0.6 in 2015, encoded as U+1F1F9U+1F1F9 + U+1F1F0U+1F1F0 following ISO 3166-1 alpha-2. Windows renders it as 'TK' text rather than the flag.

The 2019 census counted 1,647 Tokelauans on the three atolls. Another 8,676 Tokelauans live in New Zealand (2023 census), mostly in the Hutt Valley (Porirua and Petone), with smaller communities in Rotorua and Auckland. That makes the NZ-based diaspora five times the resident population.

The posters: Tokelauan families in Porirua and the Hutt Valley; the Matauala Atafu Tokelau Community Group and language-week organisers in NZ; Tokelau Administration staff in Apia and Wellington; renewable-energy journalists citing the 2012 solar achievement; and a small core of Pacific-studies academics.

The platforms: Facebook for diaspora community groups; TikTok for Tokelauan dance clips and language-week content; Twitter/X for the occasional renewable-energy or climate news cycle; Instagram for the rare supply-ship photograph.

The calendar:

- Last week of October: Tokelau Language Week in New Zealand. Biggest 🇹🇰 window of the year on NZ school and workplace feeds. - December: Church and family feasts across all three atolls and in the NZ diaspora. - COP / climate policy cycles: Tokelau occasionally features in renewable-energy and climate-migration coverage.

• 🏛️
  Capital: Rotating. The Taupulega of the atoll holding the Ulu-o-Tokelau acts as seat of government for 12 months at a time.
• 👥
  Population: ~1,650 residents (2019 census). NZ diaspora is 5x larger.
• 🗺️
  Area: 12 km² across three coral atolls (Atafu, Nukunonu, Fakaofo). Highest point ~5m above sea level.
• 💵
  Currency: New Zealand dollar (NZD, $)
• 🗣️
  Languages: Tokelauan (Gagana Tokelau) and English (both co-official)
• 📞
  Calling code: +690
• ⏰
  Time zone: Pacific/Fakaofo (UTC+13), no DST
• 🌐
  Internet TLD: .tk (historic free-domain TLD; Freenom shut it down late 2023)

Foods that show up next to 🇹🇰

Landmarks that anchor Tokelauan content

Tokelau was one of the last places in the Pacific to get a national flag. For most of its post-contact history, the three atolls flew British and then New Zealand colonial flags.

The atolls were originally part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands protectorate from 1877. In 1925, administration transferred to New Zealand as a sub-office of Western Samoa's administration. In 1948, the Tokelau Islands Act formalized NZ administration directly from Wellington.

The push for a national flag came out of a long, slow constitutional conversation. Two UN-supervised referendums on becoming a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand were held in February 2006 and October 2007. Both produced yes-majorities (60.1% and 64.4%) but missed the two-thirds threshold agreed between Tokelau and New Zealand. The self-determination project stalled but did not end.

In May 2008, the General Fono approved a flag design: a blue field with a yellow Tokelauan vaka in full sail on the fly, and the four white stars of the Southern Cross in the hoist. The canoe sailing toward the stars was chosen to represent Tokelau's ongoing journey, with the stars as navigational guide. It's one of the few national flags whose symbolism explicitly references an unresolved political question.

The Governor-General of New Zealand presented the flag to the Ulu-o-Tokelau at a ceremony on Fakaofo on September 7, 2009. That date is now observed as a de facto national day, though Tokelau still does not have a formal Independence or Constitution Day equivalent.

In Tokelau itself, the flag flies outside each Taupulega (village council), outside the Fale Fono Paia (General Fono building, currently located on whichever atoll hosts the Ulu-o-Tokelau), and on the Olohega supply ships that connect the three atolls to Apia. Because the atolls share their calendar with NZ, the flag also appears on Anzac Day and on NZ public holidays.

In New Zealand, 🇹🇰 is most visible during Tokelau Language Week (the last week of October each year), which is organized by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples alongside the other eight Pacific language weeks. The biggest Tokelauan community is in Porirua and the wider Hutt Valley north of Wellington, dating to the migration waves of the 1960s and 1970s when Tokelauans left the atolls under the Tokelau Resettlement Scheme.

For non-Tokelauan posters, 🇹🇰 attaches almost exclusively to three narrow contexts: renewable-energy success stories (the 2012 solar milestone), academic climate-migration writing, and the rare Pacific-identity thread. It may be the single rarest Commonwealth flag emoji on English-language feeds.

• 🎖️
  April 25: Anzac Day: Wreath-laying for Tokelauans who served in the NZ Expeditionary Force.
• 🏛️
  September 3: Tokehega Day: Commemorates Tokelau's recognition under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the country's political status within the Realm of New Zealand.
• 🇹🇰
  September 7: Flag Day (de facto): Not a formal public holiday, but marks the anniversary of the 2009 flag adoption.
• 🗣️
  Late October: Tokelau Language Week (NZ): The biggest 🇹🇰 window of the year on NZ school and workplace feeds. Organised by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples alongside the eight other Pacific language weeks.
• 🎄
  December 25-26: Christmas and Boxing Day: Church-heavy holiday. Family feasts across all three atolls.

• •Tokelau's flag is one of the youngest in the world, adopted only on September 7, 2009. Before that, Tokelau flew the New Zealand flag alone.
• •In 2012, Tokelau became the first country on Earth to generate 100% of its electricity from renewable sources, with three atoll-sized solar arrays replacing diesel generators.
• •Tokelau has no unified capital. The Taupulega of whichever atoll currently holds the Ulu-o-Tokelau (head of government) rotates as the seat of government every 12 months.
• •Tokelau has no airport. Every arrival and departure is by sea, on one of the roughly three MV Mataliki supply-ship runs per month from Apia, Samoa.
• •Two UN-supervised referendums in 2006 and 2007 on becoming a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand both missed the two-thirds majority threshold by a small margin (60.1% yes in 2006, 64.4% in 2007). The canoe on the flag explicitly references that ongoing journey.
• •The .tk domain that Tokelau owned was once the world's largest TLD by registrations because the Dutch company Freenom gave domains away for free. Almost none of the revenue reached the country; Freenom shut the service down in late 2023.
• •Tokelau's highest point is roughly 5 metres above sea level, making it one of the most climate-vulnerable sovereign-adjacent territories on Earth.
• •Tokelauan, Samoan, and Tuvaluan are closely related Polynesian languages. A Tokelauan from Fakaofo and a Samoan from Apia can hold a halting conversation; a Tuvaluan speaker will follow most of it.

• •🇹🇰 is the regional indicator sequence U+1F1F9U+1F1F9 (T) + U+1F1F0U+1F1F0 (K), following ISO 3166-1 alpha-2.
• •Windows 10 and 11 render this as 'TK' text rather than the flag image.
• •Shortcode is typically :flag_tk::flag_tk: on Slack and Discord.
• •The .tk.tk top-level domain was shut down for new registrations by Freenom in late 2023. Pre-existing .tk domains continue to resolve but are widely blocked by email filters.

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