File talk:Flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands.svg

Flag and National Symbols Ordinance 2016

The TCI government released an ordinance pertaining to the flag in 2016. Full title is Turks and Caicos Islands Flag and National Symbols (Regulation) Ordinance 2016. The ordinance can be viewed in flash or jpeg (pick your favorite!). [1] or [2].
Page 9 of the the ordinance includes the following:

• A description of the flag (in English).
• A slightly blurry image of the flag
• 10 coloured squares showing the colours of the flag. Each coloured square is conveniently labelled with an RGB value.

A less blurry (but otherwise identical) image of the flag appears in PNG format at the top of the TCI Attorney General website [3] [4].

Except for file format and resolution, the image in the ordinance and the image on the web site are both identical to the 2006-02-24 version of File:Flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands.svg uploaded to Wikimedia 10 years prior by Denelson83.

The image of the flag includes the following detail:

• The shield is clearly larger than the one depicted on the 1968 flag.
• There is a white border around the shield.
• There are thin black lines inside and outside the white border.
• The shield is vertically centered such that its flat top and pointed bottom are equidistant from the top and bottom of the flag respectively.

The ordinance has several annoyances:

• It is not available in pure html or pdf format. The entire document is rendered as a set of low resolution bit-mapped images which makes the text invisible to Googlebot and other standard search engines.
• The label "Pantone colours" appears above the colour squares, but official Pantone colour codes are nowhere to be found in the ordinance.
• RGB values for the two shades of pink are shown with only 2 bytes; the 3rd byte representing blue level is missing. However, the values can ascertained by peeking at at the labelled colour squares for the coat of arms which appears on the next page of the ordinance.
• Colours used in the image of the flag do not quite match the RGB values shown beside the coloured squares.
• The description states clearly that the shield should fit into an imaginary circle with a diameter equal to 4/9 of the hoist width. The shield shown in the image (with or without its border) will not fit into the described imaginary circle!

Notes:

1. The 4/9 fraction possibly dates back as far as 1875 when the flag was given a circular badge instead of a shield; if I understand thing correctly, the fraction was the standard for all Blue Ensigns used by UK overseas territories up to 1999. The badge depicted in File:Old Flag of Turks and Caicos.gif is exactly 4/9.
2. When the circular badge was replaced with a shield in 1968, the shield was expected to fit into an imaginary circle with a diameter 4/9 of the hoist width. Rules for vertically centering the shield on the 1968 flag are unclear to me, but I suspect the circle was supposed to be vertically centered instead of the shield.
3. There are multiple sources on the web that state that the larger shield with its white border first appeared on the TCI flag in 1999.
4. The TCI government website does not show records from years prior to 2014. It is not clear to me exactly who initiated the 1999 changes to the TCI flag and whether or not the changes were officially documented at the time.
5. I took some measurements from the PNG image on the TCI Attorney General web site; I found that the whole shield (including its border) will fit into an imaginary circle with a diameter equal to 91/180 of the hoist width. Methinks somebody was aiming for 1/2! I repeated the measurement with the 2006-02-24 version of File:Flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands.svg and I got the exact same result.

It is my opinion that:

1. File:Flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands.svg should reflect the features and proportions depicted in the image used in the 2016 ordinance and/or the image used on the the Attorney General website.
2. The reference to 4/9 that appears in the 2016 ordinance should be ignored (except when drawing historical flags from 1999 or earlier).
3. File:Flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands.svg should use the exact RGB values that are spelled out in the 2016 ordinance.

MapGrid (留言) 02:29, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

This file has been used in: Country #52: Turks and Caicos (in en). theglobalreader.com (2019-06-24). Retrieved on 2019-07-01. web.archives.org