Flag: St. Kitts & Nevis

A black diagonal band with yellow edges and two white stars, between green and red. The green triangle sits at the top left, the red at the bottom right, and the band runs from the lower left corner up to the top right. Small emoji pictures squash the details, but the diagonal and the two stars are what to look for.

Every part has an official meaning. Green is the fertile land, red the struggle against slavery and colonial rule, black the people's African heritage, yellow the year-round sunshine, and the two stars hope and liberty. The flag was chosen in a national competition and first raised on 19 September 1983, the day the country became independent from Britain; its designer, Edrice Lewis, was a student at the time.

The country itself is two islands a few kilometres apart: St Kitts (formally Saint Christopher), the larger one with the capital Basseterre, and Nevis, smaller, rounder and proud of its own identity. People from them are Kittitians and Nevisians. English is the official language, cricket is the national sport, and King Charles III is head of state, as in Jamaica or Canada. St Kitts was the first English colony in the Caribbean, settled in the 1620s and long called the "Mother Colony of the West Indies", and its economy ran on sugar until the last mill closed in 2005. Tourism has been its leading industry since.

What does it mean when someone sends 🇰🇳?

Usually pride, heritage, or a trip to the islands. The flag turns up in bios and name lines of Kittitians and Nevisians at home and in the communities abroad, chiefly in the United States, Canada and Britain, often next to the flag of the country they now live in. Sent in a chat, it usually means "I'm from there", "I'm going there" or "look at this beach".

It shows up especially around 19 September, Independence Day, and during Sugar Mas, the national carnival that runs through December into early January. Sports is the other setting: the islands' athletes compete under this flag at the Olympics and in athletics, and the sprinter Kim Collins, world 100 m champion in 2003, is the islands' best-known star. In cricket, though, the islands play as part of the West Indies, so the flag marks individual players rather than a national team.