Flags with Canton Designs

In vexillology, a canton is the upper-hoist quarter of a flag — the rectangle nearest the flagpole. The term comes from heraldry, where a small square in the chief corner of a shield was used to layer a secondary symbol over the main design.

The most influential canton in the world is the blue field of fifty white stars on the United States flag, adopted in its first form in 1777. Its formula — a striped field with a star-filled canton — was deliberately echoed by Liberia in 1847 and Malaysia in 1950, both signaling political kinship with the American republic.

A second great canton tradition comes from the British Union Jack, which still appears in the upper-hoist corner of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Tuvalu as a marker of historical sovereignty layered onto each nation's own symbols.