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Flag of Bonaire

flag of special municipality in the Netherlands

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ834419 ↗
Source-derived summary

The flag of Bonaire, adopted on 11 December 1981, represents the Dutch island in the Caribbean Netherlands. Bonaire commemorates Flag Day on September 6 annually, the traditional date Europeans first arrived on the island. The professional vexillologist Whitney Smith was involved in developing Bonaire's flag.

The flag has a large dark blue band in the lower right corner and a smaller yellow band in the upper left corner. The dark blue and yellow bands represent the sea and sun respectively while the dividing white strip represents the sky. The yellow band was formerly red as a reference to the Dutch flag, but was changed at some point to avoid having two separated sections of red (from the star). The coloured bands are separated by a white strip, inside of which is a black compass and a red six-pointed star.

The black compass represents the population of Bonaire as a seafaring people, and the arrows adjusting it symbolises equality in the four cardinal directions of the compass. The red six-pointed star represents the original six villages of Bonaire: Antriol, Nikiboko, Nort Saliña, Playa, Rincon and Tera Korá.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Flag of Bonaire” is flag of special municipality in the Netherlands. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Flag, Bonaire and flag, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1981—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1981. For this dossier, Flag, Bonaire and flag is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “flag of special municipality in the Netherlands” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q834419. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
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  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Flag of Bonaire”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Flag of Bonaire primary sources, Flag of Bonaire archive and Flag research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Flag of Bonaire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.