Family research · Phase 15 of the world atlas

Flags of Suriname

Suriname's colonial history turns on a single, oddly specific real-estate swap: the 1667 Treaty of Breda, in which the Dutch acquired the colony that would become Dutch Guiana from England — and, in the same treaty, ceded New Amsterdam on the other side of the Atlantic to the English, who renamed it New York. The Netherlands held Suriname as a plantation colony and then an autonomous territory for over three centuries, until full independence arrived on 25 November 1975.

Few countries in South America carry a more genuinely mixed population than Suriname. Dutch plantation slavery brought enslaved Africans until abolition in 1863; the decades after abolition then brought waves of indentured laborers from British India, from Java in the Dutch East Indies, and from China, layering Hindustani, Javanese, and Chinese communities onto the existing Afro-Surinamese, Maroon, and Dutch population — a demographic mix the country's flag itself, with its single unifying star, was explicitly designed to represent.

Scope of this page: the lands of present-day Suriname, c. 1500s (indigenous and early colonial era) – present, four political entries. No internal governing split exists within Suriname's own modern borders at any point in its history, so unlike some other pages in this atlas, this one carries no internal-partition map. Part of a larger atlas — see the linked pages at the bottom.

Four eras, one real border

Suriname's own real coastal border, traced whole — one lineage of Dutch colonial administration from a single riverine outpost to today's republic, with no genuinely separate internal region to carve out. Press play, or drag the slider.

This page doesn't split internally. Dutch Guiana was governed as a single colony from Paramaribo throughout; the interior's Indigenous and Maroon communities were never organized as a rival, separately-ruled polity in the way this atlas reserves for a genuine internal split.

c. 1500s–1667

Indigenous peoples and earlier settlement attempts

Real traced coastal border — no internal partition; see the rule box above.

green-white-red-white-green bands, yellow star centered on red — unchanged since 1975

1975 – present

Republic of Suriname (independent, modern)

RepublicHenck ArronSecular (no official state religion)

Migration & conquest:Emigration: to the Netherlands around independence (1970s)

Who & why: Suriname becomes independent from the Netherlands on 25 November 1975, and this flag — adopted that same year — has flown unchanged ever since. The country's population, shaped by Dutch, African-Maroon, Hindustani (Indian-descended), Javanese/Indonesian, and Chinese migration and labor history, is genuinely one of the most ethnically diverse in South America.

What it represents: the yellow five-pointed star centered on the red band stands for national unity and the sacrifice of all of Suriname's ethnic groups; the colors represent agriculture (green), justice and the road to independence (red), and the country's progressive future (yellow, via the star).

Paint guide

Proportions2:3, official since 1975.

LayoutHorizontal bands green (20%) / white (10%) / red (40%) / white (10%) / green (20%), yellow five-pointed star centered on the red band.

Green#377E3F

White#F4EFE1

Red#C8102E

Star, yellow#ECC81A

white field, red oval, five stars (simplified as dots) for the five population groups

1954 – 1975

Suriname, autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Autonomous territoryJohan Adolf PengelNo official state religion (multi-faith)

Ruling house:House of Orange-Nassau

Who & why: the 1954 Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands grants Suriname, alongside the Netherlands Antilles, autonomous self-governing status while remaining part of the Kingdom under the Dutch crown. In the first years of this period Suriname flies the plain Dutch tricolor, its own distinct flag not yet in use; a dedicated Surinamese flag is adopted in 1959 and flies until full independence two decades later, in 1975.

What it represents: the 1959 flag's white field carries a red oval band enclosing five small stars, each a different color, representing Suriname's main population groups — African, Indian (Hindustani), European (Dutch), Chinese, and Javanese/indigenous — joined by the band as a single nation.

Paint guide

ProportionsNo fixed ratio recorded; shown at 3:2. Plain Dutch tricolor flown 1954–59, before this design's adoption.

LayoutWhite field, red oval band, five small stars of different colors arranged around the oval (simplified here as colored dots).

White#F4EFE1

Red band#C8102E

Star, black#1A1A1A

Star, brown#8B5A2B

Star, yellow#ECC81A

Dutch tricolor flown over the colony of Dutch Guiana

1667 – 1954

Dutch Guiana (Netherlands colony)

ColonyAbraham CrijnssenDutch Reformed Christianity (established)

Migration & conquest:Immigration: enslaved Africans (colonial era)Immigration: Indian, Javanese & Chinese indentured laborers

Ruling house:House of Orange-Nassau

Who & why: the Dutch acquire the colony from England by the 1667 Treaty of Breda — the same treaty in which the Dutch cede New Amsterdam, on the other side of the Atlantic, to England, which renames it New York, a frequently noted historical trade. The Dutch develop Suriname as a plantation colony reliant on enslaved African labor. After the Netherlands abolishes slavery in 1863 (with a mandatory decade-long transition period before full emancipation), indentured laborers are brought from British India, the Dutch East Indies (Java), and China to work the plantations, producing the genuinely diverse population Suriname has today.

What it represents: the plain Dutch tricolor — red, white, and blue horizontal bands — serves as the colonial flag and ensign for the whole of this nearly three-century span; no distinct Surinamese colonial flag is adopted until the transition to autonomy in the 1950s.

Paint guide

ProportionsNo fixed civil ratio recorded for the colonial period; shown at 3:2.

LayoutThree equal horizontal bands: red, white, blue.

Red#AE1C28

White#F4EFE1

Blue#21468B

placeholder maroon field — indigenous and earliest colonial era, no flag survives

c. 1500s – 1667

Indigenous peoples and earlier settlement attempts

No unified polityNo single ruler documentedTraditional Arawak/Carib beliefs (no state establishment)

Who & why: Arawak and Carib peoples inhabit the coastal and interior regions of present-day Suriname for centuries before European colonization, living in autonomous communities with no single overarching authority. English settlers make the first lasting European colonial foothold in the region in the 1650s, before the Dutch acquire the territory outright from England in 1667 by the Treaty of Breda.

What it represents: no securely documented flag survives from either the indigenous communities of this era or the brief, contested early English and other European settlement attempts; none can be attributed to this territory with confidence. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

Paint guide

ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.

Reading the tags

No unified polity — no single governing authority yet

Colony — governed directly as an overseas possession

Autonomous territory — self-governing, crown/kingdom retained

Republic — sovereign, independent state

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 Suriname 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 Suriname →

More of the atlas

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

Flags Atlas indexSearch every country and hub South America hubThe continent's countries, one lineage each