This is the personal flag of Stanley M. Max, a member of the US Metric Association.
On the flag’s field, the circle circumscribing the cross is the astronomical symbol for the Earth, and the curved arrow demarcates one-quarter of the planet’s circumference. The French revolutionary government, upon establishing the metric system in the 1790s, commissioned a study of the length of the meridian passing from Dunkirk to Barcelona through the Paris Observatory, and decreed that one ten-millionth of the arc extending from the North Pole to the Equator along this meridian would constitute a metre. Hence, a quarter circumference of the globe measures ten million metres, or 10’000 kilometres.
The ratio of my flag is 2:3, which is the same proportion as the flag of the European Union (EU). A major proponent of the metric system, every EU member country exclusively — or almost exclusively — utilizes the metric system for its system of weights and measures.
The flag features two colors.
One of them is Pantone yellow (RGB: 255/204/0), used for the stars on the EU flag, and the other is Pantone reflex blue (RGB: 0/51/153), used on the field of the EU flag. At least approximately, these same two colors also figure in the logo of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), the international agency headquartered near Paris whose charge is to administer the International System of Units (SI), as the modern metric system is known. In English, the BIPM translates to International Bureau of Weights and Measures.
Notice, incidentally, the spelling shown here of the word metre. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) states the following: “In all cases, the spelling metre should be used for the unit, while the spelling meter should be used for a measuring instrument (as in micrometer).” Moreover, says the IAU, “the word kilometre should be pronounced ki-lo-me-te, not kil-lom-e-ter.” For its part, however, the BIPM does not mandate which syllable should be stressed in the word kilometre.