the belize flag

The Belize flag is a royal blue field with a red stripe along the top and bottom edges and the national coat of arms inside a white disc at the center. The coat of arms shows two woodcutters, a mahogany tree, logging tools, and the national motto on a scroll, all ringed by a wreath of fifty leaves.

Belize's is the only national flag with human beings as its central design. The coat of arms, in use since 1907 under British Honduras, shows two woodcutters, a mestizo man and a Creole man, representing the communities that built the country's colonial-era logwood and mahogany trade. The only other national flag depicting a person at all is Malta's, where a tiny St George appears on the George Cross medal in the corner.

Sub Umbra Floreo is Belize's national motto, written on the scroll beneath the coat of arms. It is Latin for "Under the shade I flourish," a reference to the mahogany tree that shaped the country's early economy and still anchors the flag's design. The motto has been in use since the British Honduras coat of arms of 1907.

The current flag was officially adopted on September 21, 1981, the day Belize gained independence from the United Kingdom. It kept the blue-and-white coat-of-arms design used during self-government and added the two red stripes.

The keel-billed toucan is the national bird of Belize. You can spot its rainbow-colored bill in the rainforest canopy across the country's inland reserves.

Baird's tapir, locally nicknamed the mountain cow, is the national animal of Belize. It is the largest land mammal in Central America and is protected in Belize.

Alongside the keel-billed toucan and Baird's tapir, Belize's national flower is the black orchid and its national tree is the mahogany, the same tree at the center of the flag's coat of arms.