{"id":595,"date":"2026-05-29T10:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flags.page\/en\/glossary\/canton\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T10:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:19:18","slug":"canton","status":"publish","type":"term","link":"https:\/\/flags.page\/sl\/glossary\/canton\/","title":{"rendered":"Canton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A **canton** is a rectangular area placed in the upper hoist corner of a flag, occupying roughly a quarter of the field. It is the most honourable position in a flag&#8217;s design and is most often used to bear a distinguishing emblem on an otherwise plain or striped field. Cantons are characteristic of ensigns, where the national flag is placed in the canton of a coloured field to denote the vessel&#8217;s affiliation.<\/p>\n<p>**Example**: The fifty stars on a blue canton in the flag of the United States identify the union of states and have inspired numerous derivative designs such as the flags of Liberia and Malaysia.<\/p>\n<p>**See also**: [hoist](\/glossary\/hoist\/), [ensign](\/glossary\/ensign\/), [field](\/glossary\/field\/), [canton-and-field](\/glossary\/canton-and-field\/)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-595","term","type-term","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flags.page\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/term\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flags.page\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/term"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flags.page\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/term"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flags.page\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}