Flag of Easter Island
flag
The flag of Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Te Reva Reimiro or Te Reva Rapa Nui, Spanish: Isla de Pascua) consists of a white banner with a red reimiro. In addition to the island itself, the flag is also used to symbolize the indigenous Rapa Nui people. It was first flown in public alongside the national flag of Chile on 9 May 2006.
Description
The flag of Rapa Nui is white and features in its center a reimiro (a wooden pectoral ornament once worn by the people of Rapa Nui) painted in red (mana), a symbol of power, with two anthropomorphic figures at its edges, representing the ariki (chiefs, nobles).
History
French missionaries in the 1866 described the Rapa Nui flag as white, and they mentioned that the SSCC mission used a flag with a red cross on the island:
"It is worth noting that alongside the French flag was the Rapa Nui flag, but also the mission flag: "When the ship sees the mission flag (a white flag with a red cross in the middle)." This reference also appears in 1864, when they set out to search for Eugenie Eyraud: "A little later, we saw many people on the island, coming and going in all directions. Soon the beach was covered with people. A white flag, raised on land, indicated where we should anchor and announced a peaceful reception." When Eugenie Eyraud's brother was buried: "Mr. Bornier and all his men, as well as almost all the inhabitants of the island, attended the funeral. Our Rapa Nui flag, after covering the coffin during the ceremony, was raised as a sign of mourning."
In 1869, the most powerful person on the island became the sheep farmer Jean-Baptiste Dutrou-Bornier. When Dutrou-Bornier came into conflict with the missionaries, he formed the Rapa Nui militia, which he allowed to return to traditional beliefs.
The public source identifies “Flag of Easter Island” as flag. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Flag, Easter and Island.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1144745. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2006, 1866, 1864 and 1869.
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This entry incorporates text from “Flag of Easter Island” 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.