Today’s destination is Liberia, a small West African nation with a flag that looks suspiciously close to the US flag. There is actually a connection here. Liberia was founded by the United States back in 1847 to be a place to repatriate former slaves. 

The country was modelled on the US. The official language is even English. The capital city is called Monrovia named after the former US president James Monroe.

Even today Liberian culture is heavily influenced by American culture, even down to the number plates on cars. Liberia is one of only two African nations to use the US size number plate. Oh and there’s a Liberian county named Maryland.

Like many people, the first I learned of Liberia was seeing its flag and name on ships around the world. Liberia is a shipping powerhouse with the Second-Largest Ship Registry in the World acting as a flag of convenience. 3,726 ships are registered in this tiny nation. Registration fees constitute 6% of the Liberian government’s income. Despite this Liberia is one of the poorest countries in the world with a formal employment rate of only 15%.

The Liberian ship registry isn’t even based in Monrovia, or even Liberia. The Liberian ship registry is headquartered in the rather mundane Dulles, Virginia in the United States. This is very convenient for shipping businesses. Who wants to fly all the way to an obscure West African nation to register your ship? In fact, this arrangement is so agreeable, that a Liberian registration is known as a “flag of convenience”. 

The underlying reason so many ships are registered in Liberia is that it’s a tax haven for ship registration and has arrangements with various countries like China to reduce tariffs. It also has very low worker and environmental standards allowing ship owners to save even more money. Oh and don’t forget the benefit of using Liberian ship registration to conceal your ownership of a particular ship.

If you are interested in learning more about Liberia, VisualPolitik has a great deep-dive on how Liberia became a flag of convenience. 

Anyway, I’m off for a cycle ride around the Danish coast to spot a few Liberian flagged vessels.