OCEANIA

Samoa

A Polynesian nation in the South Pacific, Samoa jumped across the International Date Line in 2011, skipping a whole day to better align its calendar with trading partners like Australia and New Zealand.

WHAT THE FLAG MEANS ◢

A red field with a blue canton bearing five white stars. The Schedule to the Official Flag and National Anthem of Samoa Act 1994 prescribes the flag in geometric detail, down to the vertical and horizontal units fixing the size and position of every star, and the one thing it interprets is the stars, which it names as representing the Southern Cross. It assigns the red, blue and white no meaning. The familiar reading of red as courage, blue as freedom and white as purity is not the Act's.

Samoa FACTS ◢

Capital	Apia
Continent	Oceania
Population	219,306 (2025)
Area	2,842 km²
Population density	77/km²
Currency	Samoan tālā (WST)
Official languages	English, Samoan
Calling code	+685
Internet TLD	.ws
Time zone	UTC+13:00
Drives on the	Left
ISO codes	WS / WSM

DID YOU KNOW? ◢

In 2011 it skipped December 30 entirely, hopping over the International Date Line to change which side of the calendar it lived on.
Author Robert Louis Stevenson, of 'Treasure Island' fame, spent his final years in Samoa and is buried there.
It's considered a cradle of Polynesian culture, with traditions like the elaborate 'fa'a Samoa' way of life still central to daily living.
The traditional Samoan tattoo, or pe'a, is applied by hand using tools made from bone and tusk.