Last modified: 2005-05-07 by jonathan dixon
Keywords: australia | southern cross | stars: 7 points | construction sheet |
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The Australian flag is defined by the Flags Act 1953, which can be found here. The construction details are defined in the schedule to the act.
Jonathan Dixon, 5 February 2003
All the stars have an inner diameter (circle on which the inner corners rest) of 4/9 the outer diameter (circle of outer corners), even the 5-point star. The positions of the stars are as follows:
The outer radius of the 7-pointed stars in the Southern Cross should be 1/14 the width of the fly (the "height" of the flag). For the 5-pointed star it should be 1/24. The Commonwealth star should be 3/20. In each case, the inner radius should be 4/9 of the outer radius.
Jonathan Dixon, 3 February 2003
A good template of the Australian flag can be found at http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/images/flag_template.jpg. Below is a different representation:
by Mello Luchtenberg and Jonathan Dixon, 3 February 2003
The Australian and New Zealand flags are both blue with the Union Jack in the canton and the southern cross in the fly. The federation star in the lower hoist is unique to the Australian flag. When comparing the representations of the southern cross on the flags of Australia and New Zealand, we find that
As a summary, the Southern Cross on the Australian flag is larger than the NZ one, and has a slightly thinner shape. The intersection of the "arms" forms the same angle in both flags, but is both slightly lower and slightly more horizontally central than the intersection in the NZ cross, which is more skewed towards the hoist, although these differences are fairly negligible.
Of course, the main difference between the two crosses is that the New Zealand flag has one less star, and has all the
stars with 5 points and in red rather than white.
Jonathan Dixon, 12 February 2003