Flag of Cyprus

What the flag of Cyprus looks like

The national flag of Cyprus has a plain white field. In the center is a silhouette of the island of Cyprus in a copper-orange color, with its long northern "panhandle" pointing to the right. Below the map are two olive branches, crossed at the stems, in green. The proportions are 2:3.

The flag has no blue, red or stripes. This is not an accident. At the time of independence, the two main communities on the island, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, had ties to Greece and Turkey, whose flags are blue and white and red and white. The designers wanted a flag that belonged to neither community and that did not use either country's colors.

The map on the flag is often compared to the flag of Kosovo, which also shows its territory in a map shape, in gold, on a blue field. The Cyprus flag emoji shows the same design, and larger files are on the Cyprus flag download page.

Cyprus is an island in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon, and its capital is Nicosia. The island has been divided since 1974, and the flag described here is that of the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus.

Cyprus flag meaning and symbolism

Each element of the Cyprus flag has a clear meaning:

• The copper color of the map refers to the island's copper. The name "Cyprus" is linked to the metal, and the Latin word for copper, cuprum, comes from the Latin name of the island. Copper was mined on Cyprus in antiquity.
• The white field stands for peace.
• The olive branches stand for peace and hope between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities.

The image of the whole island on the flag was meant to show a shared homeland for both communities.

History of the Cyprus flag

Cyprus was under Ottoman rule from 1571, and it came under British administration in 1878. It became a British crown colony in 1925. The island used a British colonial flag until it became independent on 16 August 1960.

The flag of the new republic was chosen in a competition. The winning design came from a Turkish Cypriot artist, İsmet Güney, and it was then adjusted and approved by the leaders of the two communities. The flag has kept the same basic design since 1960, with only the exact shades and the shape of the map standardized later.

After intercommunal violence in the 1960s and the events of 1974, the island has been divided. In 2004, a UN plan proposed by Kofi Annan would have reunited the island and created a new flag, but Greek Cypriots rejected it in a referendum, and the plan did not take effect. The 1960 flag stayed in use.

Flag of Northern Cyprus and the question of two flags

Does Cyprus have two flags? The Republic of Cyprus, which is internationally recognized and has been a member of the European Union since 2004, uses the flag above. In the north of the island, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, declared in 1983 and recognized only by Turkey, uses a different flag. It is white with two horizontal red stripes near the top and bottom edges and a red crescent and star between them, and it resembles the flag of Turkey. The Cyprus flag with the copper map is the one used at the United Nations and in the European Union. The status of the north remains disputed.