The United Kingdom

Artist: Jody Ghani

Hi everyone, here is the explanation to go with the United Kingdom's flag that I have drawn:)

The flag is normally called the "Union Jack" because it represents a union of countries - England, Ireland, and Scotland and Wales (the flag does not include a flag from Wales because Wales was never ruled in the same way that the other countries were ruled).

Actually it shouldn't be called the "Union Jack", because a jack is a flag that is flown on a jackstaff which is a small flag pole on the back of a naval ship. So it should be called the "Union Flag".

The Union Jack/Flag includes the Cross of St. George (England), the Cross of St. Andrew (Scotland) and the Cross of St. Patrick (Ireland).

In 1606, the first flag of Great Britain was developed, which included the crosses of England and Scotland (at this point, Ireland had not been united with England or Scotland).

The red cross (England) had to be put onto the white on blue cross (Scotland), and a white border was added for reasons of HERALDRY (ask your teacher!). This flag was used during the reign of James 1 and Charles 1 (1603-1649), and up until 1801.

In that year, Ireland became united officially with England, so the Nation's flag had to be changed to include the Irish Cross (red diagonal cross on white). The designers had to make sure that all the crosses could be recognised as individual flags as well as being in the same flag together. They did this by making the background white (Scottish Cross) broader on one side of the Irish red than on the other (see picture). This meant that all the separate crosses could be seen and the Irish Cross had it's origianal white background.

If your nation's flag has a little Union Jack in the corner of it, then your country is probably a member of the Commonwealth Nations which include: Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Tuvalu, the state of Hawaii, the Australian States and the three Canadian States.

The Union Jack is the most important of all British symbols, and it is flown by representatives of the United Kingdom all over the world; in the military and the navy, and in royalty.

I hope this is helpful, and can be understood by everyone! If there is anything that you cannot understand, please ask.:)

love, Jody Ghani

p.s. My address is jod@ghani.demon.co.uk

This description is a part of the FLAGS project, a project that is entirely the work of KIDLINK youth.

Flags of all KIDLINK countries can be described and'drawn' by KIDLINK kids and sent as TEXT file plus UUencoded GIF file to Robbert Uittenbroek and Andraz Tancek , the moderators.

To retrieve the announcement of the FLAGS project, send an email to LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU (or LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 on BITNET) and type the following line in the TEXT-part of the email:

GET KIDPROJ FLAGSINF