United States Flag



The United States flag, often referred to as the American flag or U.S. flag, nicknamed Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and the Star-Spangled Banner is the national flag of the United States of America.

Background
One of the first variants of the United States flag was known as the Betsy Ross flag. The pattern of the flag is 13 alternating red-and-white stripes with stars in a field of blue in the upper left corner canton. Its distinguishing feature is thirteen 5-pointed stars arranged in a circle representing the 13 colonies that fought for their independence during the American Revolutionary War.

The second flag utilized by the country consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton (referred to specifically as the "union") bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 states of the United States of America, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain and became the first states.

With the introduction of the commonwealth system in 1969, the canton that would normally represent the states was amended to reflect the number of constituent commonwealths, with a single central star representing the Columbia Commonwealth, the seat of the federal government, and center of American power. The other 12 stars surrounding it are used to represent the other commonwealths that comprise the United States of America. The annexation of Canada in 2076 led to the addition of a thirteen star to the circle, bringing the total number of stars to 14.  Despite this change, the 50 star flag was still used, albeit rarely, in posters, weapons, and clothing, along with a special variant brought back from the moon.