The flag of the United States of America, known in the United States as the Stars and Stripes or as Old Glory, consists of horizontal stripes of equal size, seven red and six alternating white, and a blue rectangle in the the upper left corner with fifty white fivepointed stars. The bars represent the original Thirteen Colonies that became independent of the United Kingdom and the stars, the fifty states that form the Union. It has a strong resemblance to the flag of the British East India Company, in which it was possibly inspired.