South Georgia

The blue ensign carries the badge of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. Its colours are blue for ice, silver for snow, and green for grass. The reindeer crest recalls the two reindeer herds on South Georgia.

Island in the South Atlantic, a British crown colony administered, with the South Sandwich Islands, from the Falkland Islands by a commissioner; area 3,757 sq km/1,450 sq mi. The average temperature on the island is −2°C/28.4°F.

There has been no permanent population since the whaling station was abandoned in 1966. South Georgia lies 1,300 km/800 mi southeast of the Falkland Islands, of which it was a dependency until 1985. The British Antarctic Survey has a station on nearby Bird Island.

South Georgia was visited by Captain James Cook in 1775. The explorer Ernest Shackleton is buried here. The chief settlement, Grytviken, was established as a whaling station in 1904 and abandoned in 1966; it was reoccupied by a small military garrison after the Falklands War (1982).