Flags of Palau

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Flags of Palau

Palau's Indigenous matrilineal society, organized around clan structures and the communal bai meeting house, governed the archipelago for centuries with no single overarching authority and no flag in the heraldic sense. From 1885 onward, three successive colonial powers — Spain, Germany, and Japan — claimed the islands in turn, followed by nearly half a century of US trusteeship under the United Nations, before Palau became, on 1 October 1994, the last of the former Pacific trust territories to reach full independence.

Palau's own flag, adopted in 1981 ahead of independence, breaks from the imported heraldry of every earlier era: a plain light blue field carrying a single golden disc, representing the full moon — considered especially auspicious in Palauan tradition — offset toward the hoist.

Scope of this page: the islands of present-day Palau, pre-1885 to present, six entries. Part of a larger atlas — see the map and linked pages at the bottom.

One archipelago, six flags

Palau's own islands, traced whole — there is no genuinely separate internal region to carve out here; what changes, era to era, is which flag flew over the whole archipelago. Press play, or drag the slider.

This page carries no internal-partition map by design. Palau has never been divided into two separately-governed pieces; every change shown here is a change of administering power over the same islands, not a change of internal borders.

No usable public vector boundary for Palau was found in this atlas's usual GeoJSON source (world.geo.json omits it entirely, along with most other Pacific micro-states); the archipelago below is a simplified schematic silhouette of Babeldaob, Koror, Peleliu, and Angaur, not a surveyed or traced coastline.
pre-1885
PACIFIC OCEAN BABELDAOB KOROR · PELELIU · ANGAUR
Indigenous Palauan communities

Simplified schematic silhouette, not a surveyed or traced coastline (see the rule box above) — no internal partition, ever.

light blue field, gold disc (the full moon) offset toward the hoist
1994 – present

Republic of Palau

Independent state (free association)Kuniwo NakamuraSecular (no state religion)
Migration & conquest:Immigration: Filipino contract workersEmigration: Palauans to the United States (Compact migration)

Who & why: on 1 October 1994, Palau becomes the last of the former US-administered Pacific trust territories to achieve independence, entering into a Compact of Free Association with the United States that grants full sovereignty while the US retains defense responsibilities and Palau receives economic assistance in return. The compact, negotiated over nearly two decades, followed multiple plebiscites and a constitutional requirement for a nuclear-free Palau that had to be reconciled with US defense needs before independence could proceed.

What it represents: adopted in 1981 ahead of full independence, the flag centers a large golden disc, offset toward the hoist, against a light blue field evoking the surrounding Pacific. The disc represents the full moon, considered a particularly auspicious time in Palauan tradition, associated with peak fishing, harvest, and craft-making.

Paint guide
Proportions5:8, fixed by law since 1981.
LayoutLight blue field, single gold disc offset toward the hoist (representing the full moon).
Light blue#5AA9D6
Gold (moon)#F5C518
US flag, customarily flown alongside the UN flag over trust territories
1947 – 1994

UN Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

Trust territoryNo single ruler documentedSecular (no state religion)

Who & why: after Japan's defeat in WWII, the United States assumes administration of Palau as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI), a strategic trusteeship established by the United Nations in 1947 covering the former Japanese-mandated islands of Micronesia. Palau remains under US trusteeship longer than most of its TTPI neighbors, its path to self-government complicated by disputes over the compact's nuclear-free provisions, before finally reaching independence in 1994.

What it represents: as a UN trust territory, Palau flew the flag of the administering authority, the United States, customarily alongside the flag of the United Nations itself — the trusteeship framework, not the US, held ultimate sovereignty, and no distinct Palauan or Trust Territory flag was in wide use during this period.

Paint guide
Proportions2:3 (US flag standard); shown here as a simplified reference, typically paired with the UN flag.
LayoutThirteen red-and-white stripes, blue canton with stars (simplified as dots).
Red#A4302A
White#F4EFE1
Blue (canton)#1E2F96
the flag of Japan, flown over the South Seas Mandate
1914 – 1947

Japanese Palau (South Seas Mandate)

MandateEmperor TaishōState Shinto (Japanese administration)
Migration & conquest:Immigration: Japanese, Okinawan & Korean settlers
Ruling house:Imperial House of Japan

Who & why: at the outbreak of WWI in 1914, Japan swiftly seizes Germany's Pacific island possessions, including Palau, and administers them from 1920 for the League of Nations as the "South Seas Mandate" (Nan'yō), with Koror becoming the mandate's administrative center. Japanese rule brings settlement and infrastructure, but Palau also becomes a major WWII battleground: the September–November 1944 Battle of Peleliu ranks among the war's costliest engagements per capita, with heavy casualties on both sides before US forces secured the island.

What it represents: the flag of Japan, plain and unaltered, flew over Palau as over the rest of the mandate — no distinct emblem was created for the South Seas territories themselves.

Paint guide
Proportions2:3.
LayoutWhite field, red disc (Hinomaru) centered.
White#F4EFE1
Red#BC002D
white field, black-white-red imperial canton, colonial badge in the fly
1899 – 1914

German Palau

ColonyKaiser Wilhelm IINo official state religion
Ruling house:House of Hohenzollern

Who & why: following its defeat in the 1898 Spanish-American War, Spain sells the Caroline Islands, including Palau, to Germany in 1899; Germany administers them as part of German New Guinea's protectorate, with a light colonial footprint focused mainly on phosphate mining and the copra trade rather than settlement.

What it represents: German colonial possessions flew a white flag bearing the black-white-red imperial colors in a canton, paired with the territory's own colonial badge in the fly — a marker of imperial administration rather than a distinct territorial identity.

Paint guide
ProportionsNo fixed civil ratio recorded; shown at 3:2.
LayoutWhite field, black-white-red imperial tricolor canton (upper hoist), simplified colonial badge in the fly.
White#F4EFE1
Black#1A1A1A
Red#A4302A
red-yellow-red, yellow band at double width
1885 – 1899

Spanish Palau

ColonyAlfonso XIIRoman Catholicism (Spanish state religion)
Ruling house:House of Bourbon

Who & why: Spain formally asserts sovereignty over the Caroline Islands, including Palau, in 1885, settling a dispute with Germany (arbitrated by the Pope) and folding the islands into the Spanish East Indies administered from Manila. Spanish presence remains light, exercised mostly through Catholic missionaries rather than direct colonial government, until defeat in the 1898 Spanish-American War leads Spain to sell the islands to Germany the following year.

What it represents: the Spanish flag of the era, red-yellow-red horizontal bands with the yellow center band at double width, flew nominally over Palau as over the rest of the Spanish East Indies.

Paint guide
Proportions2:3.
LayoutHorizontal red-yellow-red bands, yellow band double the width of each red band.
Red#A4302A
Yellow#F5C518
NO FLAG DOCUMENTED
placeholder — pre-contact era, no single flag
pre-1885

Indigenous Palauan communities

Indigenous nation, pre-contactNo single ruler documentedIndigenous animist tradition
Migration & conquest:Immigration: Austronesian settlement (c. 3,000 years ago)
Ruling house:Ibedul of Koror (Idid clan)Reklai of Melekeok

Who & why: for centuries before Spanish contact, Palau's Indigenous population maintained a distinctive matrilineal society, organized around clan structures and village councils, with the bai — an elaborately carved and decorated communal meeting house — at the center of political and ceremonial life. No single overarching political authority governed the archipelago as a whole, and no flag in the heraldic sense was part of Palauan tradition.

What it represents: this entry is left honestly blank rather than retrofitted with a symbol; pre-contact Palauan political and cultural identity was expressed through the bai, clan titles, and oral tradition rather than any flag.

Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.

Reading the tags

Independent state (free association) — sovereign, compact with the US
Trust territory — administered under a UN trusteeship
Mandate — administered under a League of Nations mandate
Colony — under a foreign power's direct administration
Indigenous nation, pre-contact — no single flag, no colonial rule
Leader — the named ruler most associated with the era's start
State religion — the official/established faith, not the population's

Find the records

Family history research for Palau lives in a different project, Record Atlas, which maps which archive actually holds the paper for a given place and era.

Search Record Atlas for Palau →

More of the atlas

This page is one lineage in a larger set. See the region-wide hub and the other countries here:

Flags Atlas indexSearch every country and hub Pacific hubFourteen countries, Oceania