How to arrange any number of stars on the U.S. flag

Last modified: 2016-07-02 by rick wyatt
Keywords: united states | stars |
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image by Joe McMillan, 6 May 2003

See also:

• Stars on U.S. flags
• United States of America

How can the US national flag canton be patterned for a given number of stars? Of course we know that both legally and aesthetically you can chose whichever pattern you like, but usually this question expects an answer restricted to the regular patterns of ordered rows as in official use since 1912.

There are four different resulting patterns. For any given final number of stars (and considering only vexillographically realistic parameters - e.g. not things like one row of 51 stars should PR, or DC, or LI, or WE become a state), either several of these four patterns can be used, or only one, or even none. These four patterns are:

• The plain pattern (q⃰), made of a number of rows with identical number of stars each - usually these show in a rank-and-file arrangement, as in the famous 48-star flag (1912-1959), with six rows with eight stars on each. To make room for bigger stars, however, each other row may be shifted sideways, resulting in a zigzag pattern (and making the whole pattern to look "pointy" and "rounded" at opposite corners) without changing anything about the numbers; such is the case of the official version of the 49-star flag (1959-1960), with seven zigzag rows of seven stars each.
• The staggered pattern with even rows (e⃰), made of an even number of rows in which every other row has one star less than (or more) the previous row (the whole will look either "pointy" above and "rounded" at the bottom, or the opposite - numbers don't change); such is the 45-star flag (1896-1908) we show at with six rows and eight stars on the top row.
• The staggered pattern with odd rows and "pointy" corners (p⃰), made of an odd number of rows in which every other row has one star less than the previous row and the top row have one star more than the second row (or the bottom row has one star more than the next-to-last row), as in the current flag, with nine rows and six stars on the top one.  U.S. flag (1960-): p⃰(6;5) = 50 stars
• The staggered pattern with odd rows and "round" corners (r⃰), made of an odd number of rows in which every other row has one star more than the previous row and the top row have one star less than the second row (or the bottom row has one star less than the next-to-last row), as in the 13-star John Shaw flag, with three rows and four stars on the top one.