zaterdag 9 augustus 2014

Flag of Paramaribo

Some two years ago I moved to Paramaribo, the capital city of Suriname. Suriname doesn't seem to have subnational official flags. The etymology of the name Paramaribo is clouded in mystery, but the recently deceased prominent Surinamese historian André Loor puts forward in his latest book that the most credible one is that Paramaribo means "city near the rainbow stream" in the indigenous Karib language. In the local language Sranantongo, Paramaribo is often referred to as 'foto', simply 'city'. The word derives from the Dutch 'fort' (fortress), referring to Fort Zeelandia, the settlement around which the city grew.
In my design I combined rainbow colours with the outline of a fortress in the colours of the national flag, symbolizing Paramaribo's central position as capital of the nation.