The British Indian Ocean Territory, the entity governing the group of islands known collectively as the Chagos Archipelago, was formally created on 8th November 1965, but the territory’s flag and heraldic achievement were not granted until 1990. The flag technically was intended only to represent the office of Commissioner rather than be a civil flag in the normal way, as the Territory has no resident civilian population, instead existing mainly to house a joint United Kingdom-United States military facility.

The field of the flag is Argent charged with six bars wavy Azure. In the principal quarter is the Union Flag, and in the right half is a palm tree erect Proper charged on the trunk with the Imperial crown Or. Originally the depiction of the crown was, of course, St Edward’s Crown, but very recently it has joined the trend of changing to the Tudor Crown, in line with the preferences of the present sovereign. Checking the BIOT government website on the Wayback Machine shows the old illustration still on the homepage as late as 25th February, with the new version in its place by 22nd March. The entire flag has been redrawn in a different artistic style, probably created digitally this time instead of drawn on paper then scanned.

The flag as it appeared before.

The new image was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons earlier today. The territory’s heraldic achievement, which features a crown on the escutcheon as well as replicating the flag in the crest, is still using St Edward’s.

While I have blogged many times since 2022 about the transition between crown types, this one is particularly significant because of its political implications: Until recently, the British government had been planning to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to the Republic of Mauritius. This would likely have resulted in the BIOT ceasing to exist as a political entity with the effect that both flag and arms would be defunct.

The treaty is highly controversial and it has been challenged many times, including by the community of displaced Chagossians themselves who have appropriated the territory’s flag as a symbol of their protest movement. Last week it was announced that, due to a loss of support from the President of the United States, the ratification of the treaty had been indefinitely postponed.

The change to the Tudor Crown is therefore indicative of a change in mindset: It wouldn’t have been worth redrawing unless the polity was expected to continue to exist for an appreciable time to come.