
Last modified: 2014-09-20 by ian macdonald
Keywords: bir tawil | egypt | sudan | 
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image by Olivier Touzeau, 15 July 2014See also:
Reported in:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-man-plants-flag-claims-african-country-calling-it-kingdom-of-north-sudan/2014/07/12/abfbcef2-09fc-11e4-8a6a-19355c7e870a_story.html?tid=pm_local_pop 
and 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/american-dad-stakes-claim-to-african-kingdom-of-north-sudan-so-his-daughter-can-become-a-princess-9605410.html 
Jeremiah Heaton, an American father raised this flag for his daughter, then 
six years old, who was “big on being a princess” over an unclaimed 
800-square-mile patch of arid desert between Egypt and Sudan on 16 June, 2014. 
 The flag is flag blue with four stars and a crown on a rocky hill. The area, 
named Bir Tawil by locals, has now been called the “Kingdom of North Sudan” by 
Mr Heaton and his family.
Richard Mallett, 15 July 2014
The more surprising fact in this micronational story is the fact that he got 
permission from Egyptian authorities to travel there and could really plant his 
daughter's flag in Bir Tawil. Bir Tawil being the only terra nullius left, many 
micronational projects do claim it, but as far as I know it is the first time a 
real flag for such a project makes its way to this territory. 
Olivier 
Touzeau, 15 July 2014
It's also a very real flag, in that different specimens differ slightly. Both 
flags in the photographs seem to confirm to a description like this (but please 
improve if you can):
Blue, with centred a light blue disk with a yellow 
crown, and from that crown radiating outward to the edge of the disk 24 narrow, 
tapering red rays, around that disk, but not touching it, a yellow ring, its 
outside undulating, above it a yellow five-pointed star and below it three white 
five-pointed star, all equidistant from the centre of the disk. A ceremonial 
version of the flag has a white fringe. But otherwise they differ quite a bit; I 
see differences in the shades of the colours, the shape of the crown and the 
directions of the stars.
I like the way the rays come from the crown, not 
from the centre of the disk. In general, the design is a cut above the 
upside-down existing nations' flags and never mind the throw-everything-in 
designs. Maybe a tad like an American state, but then it has the advantage of 
not being as cluttered as the seals on blue.
I refrained from trying to 
copy this message to the royal family as it appears they have enough on their 
plate already.
http://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-jeremiah-heaton-king-of-north-sudan-2014-7
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 14 August 2014