Family research · Phase 14 of the world atlas

Flags of Vanuatu

Long before any European name was attached to these islands, the archipelago that is now Vanuatu held one of the densest concentrations of distinct languages and clan communities anywhere on Earth — scores of separate ni-Vanuatu societies, never united under a single crown or banner, spread across more than eighty islands. No flag is invented to stand in for that era; it is shown here honestly, without one.

From 1906 the islands were governed under a genuinely strange arrangement — Britain and France ruling jointly as the New Hebrides, not as one merged colonial government but as two complete, separate administrations running side by side — until independence on 30 July 1980 produced a single sovereign nation, Vanuatu, and the flag it still flies today.

Scope of this page: the islands of present-day Vanuatu, pre-1906 to present, three entries. Part of a larger atlas — see the linked pages at the bottom.

One archipelago, three rulers

Vanuatu's own real islands, traced at their true positions and spacing. Press play, or drag the slider, to watch who governed the archipelago, era to era.

This is one of the countries in the atlas that doesn't split internally. Even the Anglo-French Condominium — two parallel colonial administrations running side by side over the very same territory — was never a geographic split; both powers governed everywhere at once rather than dividing the islands between them. There is no honest line to draw across this map at any point in its history.

pre-1906

Indigenous ni-Vanuatu communities

Real traced islands (two largest shown; the chain includes many smaller islands not separately resolved at this scale), no internal partition — see the rule box above for why.

red & green bands, black Y-band, hoist triangle with tusk & namele-leaf emblem

1980 – present

Independent Republic of Vanuatu

Independent stateFather Walter LiniNo established state religion

Who & why: the New Hebrides gain independence from the Anglo-French Condominium on 30 July 1980, taking the new name Vanuatu — from a local phrase meaning roughly "our land forever" — and electing Father Walter Lini, leader of the Vanua'aku Pati, as the nation's first prime minister. Independence arrives only after a brief secessionist crisis on Espiritu Santo that year, put down with the help of Papua New Guinean troops shortly before the transfer of sovereignty.

What it represents: red stands for the blood of ancestors and national unity, green for the islands' richness, and black for the ni-Vanuatu people; the yellow band tracing a rough "Y" recalls the archipelago's own north-south shape, while the black triangle at the hoist carries a boar's tusk encircling two crossed namele-fern leaves — symbols of peace and traditional authority drawn from local custom.

Paint guide

Proportions3:5.

LayoutRed field above, green field below, separated by a yellow-fimbriated black band bearing a yellow "Y" tracing the island chain; black hoist triangle bearing a yellow boar's-tusk-and-namele-leaf emblem.

Red#D21034

Green#1A7A3C

Black#111111

Yellow#F4C430

no official condominium flag — the Union Jack and Tricolore flew side by side

1906 – 1980

New Hebrides (Anglo-French Condominium)

Condominium (dual colonial rule)No single ruler documentedNo established state religion

Who & why: the 1906 Anglo-French Convention formalizes a genuinely unusual arrangement: Britain and France govern the New Hebrides jointly, but not as one merged colonial government. Each power maintains its own resident commissioner, its own courts, its own police force, and its own currency, operating side by side across the same territory rather than blending into a single administration — ni-Vanuatu residents could, in effect, choose which of the two parallel legal systems to bring a case before.

What it represents: no condominium flag was ever officially adopted, since no single condominium government existed to adopt one; in practice, the Union Jack and the French Tricolore flew together over shared government buildings, each representing its own half of the dual administration — shown here honestly as a split flag rather than an invented joint design.

Paint guide

ProportionsNo official condominium flag existed; shown at 3:2 for reference, combining the two national flags that flew together.

LayoutLeft half: the Union Jack. Right half: the French Tricolore (blue, white, red vertical bands).

Union Jack blue#00247D

Red#A4302A

White#F4EFE1

Tricolore blue#00267F

placeholder — pre-contact era, no single flag

pre-1906

Indigenous ni-Vanuatu communities

Indigenous nations, pre-contactNo single ruler documentedMelanesian traditional / ancestor veneration

Migration & conquest:Emigration: indentured labor to Queensland & Fiji

Who & why: for millennia before European contact, the archipelago's Melanesian population organized itself into a great many distinct language and clan communities scattered across its islands — today reckoned among the most linguistically dense places on Earth relative to its population, with well over a hundred indigenous languages still spoken. No single overarching kingdom or federation ever bound these communities together; authority rested locally, in chiefs and clan structures specific to each island and often each village. European traders, missionaries, and, from the mid-19th century, "blackbirding" labor recruiters had contact with the islands for decades before the 1906 Convention formalized joint colonial rule, but that contact never produced one political entity capable of flying a single flag.

What it represents: no securely documented flag survives from this era, because none was ever needed or created — flags as a form belonged to the incoming colonial powers, not to the ni-Vanuatu communities themselves. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented, in line with this atlas's treatment of every pre-contact entry elsewhere.

Paint guide

ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.

Reading the tags

Indigenous nations, pre-contact — no single flag, no colonial rule

Condominium (dual colonial rule) — two foreign powers administering jointly, in parallel

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 Vanuatu 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 Vanuatu →

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