HONDURAS, FLAG OF

horizontally striped blue-white-blue national flag with five central blue stars. The width-to-length ratio of the flag is 1 to 2. On July 1, 1823, Central America proclaimed its independence after two years under Mexican rule and formed the United Provinces of Central America. In 1838 Honduras separated itself from the United Provinces, although it continued to use the federation flag, which dated from 1823. Civil wars and invasions from abroad plagued Honduras between 1840 and 1862. In the ensuing years of peace, attention was focused on proper national symbols. On February 16, 1866, it was decided that the Central American blue-white-blue flag would be retained but with a distinctive new central symbol. The design chosen consisted of five blue stars, symbolic of the five members of the former Central American federation (Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala). To that design the national coat of arms was to be added when the flag was flown by a naval warship. The Honduran flag was adopted less than a year after the United States preserved its national union in a civil war. In the same era, El Salvador adopted a flag patterned after the Stars and Stripes, with the red and blue colours reversed. It is possible that the stars adopted by Honduras, together with its three stripes, constituted a subtle reference to the flag of the United States (in which each star signifies a state united), particularly in light of the continued support that a proposed Central American federation found among Honduran intellectuals and politicians, at least in their public statements. Several abortive attempts at reunifying the five countries were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, each time under a horizontal blue-white-blue flag. (See also the flag histories of El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.) Whitney Smith