Highland communities in what is now Papua New Guinea were cultivating crops independently, and very early — among the first places on Earth to develop agriculture on its own, going back millennia at sites like Kuk Swamp — while organizing into thousands of distinct clans and villages rather than any single overarching polity. That fragmentation, and the extraordinary linguistic diversity it produced, is still visible today: over 800 living languages are spoken here, more than in any other country in the world.
The documented flag history proper begins in 1884, when Germany and Britain carve the territory into two separately administered colonies on the same island. Australia inherits and eventually unifies that administration across the 20th century, and Papua New Guinea becomes fully independent on 16 September 1975 — the black, red, and gold flag chosen that year, carrying the raggiana bird-of-paradise and the Southern Cross, is the one still flown today.
Scope of this page: the territory of present-day Papua New Guinea, pre-1884–present, four political entries. The 1884–1920 entry covers a genuinely divided colonial period — German rule in the northeast, British/Australian rule in the southeast — shown here as a split flag and, below, a real internal-split map. Part of a larger atlas — see the linked pages at the bottom.
German northeast, British/Australian southeast, 1884–1920
The real border of present-day Papua New Guinea (mainland plus Bougainville, New Britain, and New Ireland), split along the historical 1884 Anglo-German line: German New Guinea to the north and east, British/Australian Papua to the south. Press play, or drag the slider.
Two entirely separate colonial administrations, no shared government. German New Guinea and British/Australian Papua had different flags and different capitals until Australian forces occupied the German territory within weeks of WWI's 1914 outbreak; the border below solidifies only for 1884–1920 and dissolves the moment Australia administers both as one mandate.
pre-1884
Indigenous Papua New Guinea
Schematic internal partition on a real traced border (simplified from public coastal-vertex data, including Bougainville, New Britain, and New Ireland) — the Anglo-German dividing line is approximate, not a surveyed frontier; it dissolves outside the 1884–1920 span.
How we know this. 4 of 4 eras on this page carry an evidence panel (1 attested, 1 placeholder image, 2 not yet checked). Only the ones marked attested are confirmed by the sources named under them; where sources disagree or a claim could not be confirmed, the panel says so.
black/red diagonal split, gold bird-of-paradise, white Southern Cross
1975 – present
Independent Papua New Guinea
Independent stateMichael SomareNo official state religion
Migration & conquest:Immigration: West Papuan refugees (1960s–)
Who & why: Papua New Guinea gains full independence from Australian administration on 16 September 1975, with Michael Somare as its first prime minister, closing out a path to self-government that had been building through the 1960s–70s. It joins the United Nations and Commonwealth of Nations shortly after, retaining the British monarch as head of state under a parliamentary system.
What it represents: the flag was chosen from a 1971 national design competition won by Susan Karike, then a 15-year-old student; the raggiana bird-of-paradise, a bird found nowhere else, sits on black, while five white stars forming the Southern Cross — visible only from the southern hemisphere — sit on red, the country's own black-red-gold palette rather than any inherited colonial scheme.
Attestedhow we know this
Both sources date the current flag to 1971, before this era begins in 1975, so the flag was already in use at the start. Wikipedia's infobox gives the adoption as 1 July 1971; Flags of the World dates it July 1971.
Not established: Only the year the current flag was adopted was compared; the design and the swatch colours were not checked against a specification.
Paint guide
Proportions3:4.
LayoutDiagonally split field: black upper-hoist triangle (top-left) and red lower-fly triangle (bottom-right), split by a diagonal from the lower-hoist to the upper-fly corner. Yellow bird-of-paradise silhouette on the black; five white Southern Cross stars on the red.
Black#000000
Red#CE1126
Gold#F9D616
White#FFFFFF
Australian Blue Ensign, flown by the administering power
1920 – 1975
Australian-administered Territory of Papua and New Guinea
Mandate / trust territoryEvan WisdomNo official state religion
Migration & conquest:Occupied by: Japan (1942–45, northern territory)
Who & why: after Australian forces occupy German New Guinea in the opening weeks of WWI, the League of Nations formally hands it to Australia as a Class C mandate in 1920, administered alongside the already-Australian Territory of Papua (itself transferred from Britain in 1906) but kept as two separate administrations until a 1949 act unifies them into the single Territory of Papua and New Guinea. After WWII the former mandate continues as a United Nations trust territory under Australia, with the combined territory moving through self-government in the early 1970s toward full independence in 1975.
What it represents: neither territory nor the later combined administration had its own distinct flag; the Australian Blue Ensign, the flag of the administering power itself, was what flew over government buildings throughout this period. Wikipedia lists a Territory of Papua flag (1906-1971), a Territory of New Guinea flag (1921-1971) and a 1962 local flag, so the sources read do not support the statement that neither territory had its own flag; Flags of the World says the 1951 Customs Regulations prescribed the Australian Blue Ensign for customs use.
Not yet checked against sourceshow we know this
Wikipedia lists a Territory of Papua flag for 1906-1971, a Territory of New Guinea flag for 1921-1971, the Flag of Australia in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea 1949-1971, and a 1962 local flag, without designs. Flags of the World (historical flags): Papua's flag from 1908 was the Australian Blue Ensign with PAPUA on a white disc, the Mandated Territory of New Guinea (1921-1942) used a defaced Blue Ensign with a crown above T.N.G. on a white disc, customs flags with initials on the Australian Blue Ensign, and from 1951 an Australian national flag customs flag with T.P. & N.G.C.; the undefaced Australian Blue Ensign was reportedly flown for customs after the war.
Not established: Both sources show defaced territorial ensigns on an Australian Blue Ensign base, so the card's undefaced Australian ensign and the page's 'no distinct flag' are only partly right; the date range 1920-1975 is not matched by either source.
Paint guide
Proportions1:2.
LayoutBlue field with a simplified Union Jack canton, standing in for the Australian Blue Ensign as flown by the administering power (no distinct territorial flag existed).
Blue#00247D
White#F4EFE1
Red#A4302A
split flag: German colonial tricolor/eagle (left) and British/Australian ensign (right)
1884 – 1920
Divided colonial rule
Divided colonial ruleNo single ruler documentedNo single state religion
Who & why: in 1884, Germany annexes the northeastern mainland and nearby islands as German New Guinea (initially run by the chartered New Guinea Company, then directly by the German government from 1899), while Britain declares a protectorate over the southeastern mainland the same year, transferring its administration to Australia in 1906 as the Territory of Papua. The two territories run as entirely separate colonial administrations, with different flags, different capitals, and no shared government, until Australian forces occupy German New Guinea within weeks of the outbreak of WWI in 1914 and formally take it over as a mandate in 1920, unifying administration of the island for the first time.
What it represents: this entry is shown as a split flag rather than picking one side: the left half stands in for the German colonial flag — a white field carrying Germany's own black-white-red imperial colors and colonial eagle motif — and the right half stands in for the British/Australian Blue Ensign flown over Papua, honestly showing the dual rule rather than erasing either half of it. Wikipedia dates a German Imperial Colonial Office flag to 1884-1914 and says a proposed 1914 German New Guinea flag was never implemented; the sources read do not describe the eagle motif or the Blue Ensign over Papua.
Not yet checked against sourceshow we know this
Wikipedia dates a German Imperial Colonial Office flag to 1884-1914, a proposed German New Guinea flag of 1914 never implemented, and a Territory of Papua flag from 1906. Flags of the World (historical flags): British New Guinea used a Blue Ensign with a crown above NG on a white disc in 1885-1888 and BNG in 1888-1906, then Papua's Blue Ensign with PAPUA from 1906; the page links German New Guinea flag pages but gives no design for them.
Not established: Neither source describes a split flag or a German eagle motif; the card's split design is the page's own device, and the FOTW German New Guinea pages were not read.
Paint guide
ProportionsNo single fixed ratio; shown as two 1:1 halves side by side.
LayoutLeft half: white field, black-white-red tricolor canton, black eagle silhouette in the fly (German New Guinea). Right half: blue field with a simplified Union Jack canton (British/Australian Papua).
White#F4EFE1
Black#1A1A1A
Red#A4302A
Blue#00247D
placeholder — pre-contact era, no single flag
pre-1884
Indigenous Papua New Guinea
Indigenous nations, pre-contactNo single ruler documentedIndigenous animist traditions
Migration & conquest:Immigration: earliest human settlement (c. 50,000 years ago)Immigration: Austronesian/Lapita coastal settlement (c. 3,000 years ago)
Who & why: the highlands of what is now Papua New Guinea are among the earliest sites of independently developed agriculture anywhere in the world, with farming at places like Kuk Swamp reaching back several thousand years. The territory before 1884 is home to thousands of distinct clan and village communities, organized locally rather than under any single overarching kingdom or state, and to the most linguistically diverse population on Earth — over 800 living languages are still spoken here today.
What it represents: no single flag, in the European heraldic sense, ever governed this territory before colonial claims arrived in 1884; with no unifying polity, there is no banner to reconstruct. This entry is shown honestly blank rather than inventing one, matching the same approach taken for other pre-contact eras across this atlas.
Placeholder imagehow we know this
This page's own caption calls the image a placeholder: «placeholder — pre-contact era, no single flag».
Not established: Whether a flag, banner or standard existed in this period was not checked. The colour shown is not evidence of one.
Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.
Reading the tags
Indigenous nations, pre-contact — no single flag, no colonial rule
Divided colonial rule — two foreign powers, separate administrations
Mandate / trust territory — administered under League of Nations or UN oversight
Independent state — sovereign under its own government
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 Papua New Guinea lives in a different project, Record Atlas, which maps which archive actually holds the paper for a given place and era.