Flag of Iceland

How to read it

The Act on the National Flag of Icelanders and the Coat of Arms (No 34/1944) of 17 June 1944 makes the flag sky blue with a snow-white cross and a fiery-red cross within it, the arms reaching the edges. The white cross is 2/9 of the flag’s width and the red cross 1/9; the blue fields by the pole are square, and the outer ones as wide but twice as long, for a width to length of 18 to 25. The Prime Minister’s Office’s notice No 32/2016 fixes the colours in the SCOTDIC textile system and gives print and screen values: blue Pantone 287 (#02529C), red Pantone 199 (#DC1E35) and white. The flag was approved for use on land on 19 June 1915 and at sea in 1918, and became the national flag when Iceland became a republic on 17 June 1944, Store norske leksikon says.

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Too like the Greek and Swedish flags

Around 1900 Icelanders flew Hvítbláinn, “the white-blue”, a white cross on blue that the poet Einar Benediktsson proposed in 1897. King Christian X would not approve it because it looked too much like the Greek flag, the Government of Iceland says, and the head of the navigation school judged that in poor visibility it might look too like Sweden’s yellow cross on blue. The flag committee dropped it, and a royal decree of 19 June 1915 set Matthías Þórðarson’s three-coloured design. Store norske leksikon notes that the red cross can be read as Danish colours, a reminder of the tie to Denmark.

Norway’s colours the other way round

Norway’s flag has the same three colours the other way round: red with a dark blue cross edged in white, where Iceland’s is blue with a red cross edged in white. Store norske leksikon does not rule out that Norway’s flag inspired Iceland’s; Iceland was formally part of Norway until 1814.

Telling it from the other Nordic crosses

Iceland’s is the only one of the five with a cross inside a cross on a blue ground. All five Nordic flags set the upright of the cross towards the pole. Dannebrog was the first, followed by Sweden’s, Norway’s, Finland’s and Iceland’s, in the encyclopedia’s order. Of the others, Denmark’s is a white cross on red (28 by 37); Sweden’s a yellow cross on blue (10 by 16); Finland’s a blue cross on white (11 by 18); Norway’s a dark blue cross edged in white on red (16 by 22).

The swallowtail flag

The government, Parliament and other official institutions, and Iceland’s missions abroad, fly a swallowtail flag, whose fly sections are three times the length of the hoist sections, cut in from the corners towards the centre line. The customs flag adds a silver capital T in the upper field by the pole, and the President’s flag puts the coat of arms, with its shield bearers, on a white rectangle where the crosses meet. The coat of arms is itself the flag set upright on a shield, held by Iceland’s four mythical guardians (landvættir), Store norske leksikon says. The law forbids showing disrespect to the flag in words or deed.