Flag of Greece

What the flag of Greece looks like

The Greek flag is made of nine equal horizontal stripes, five blue and four white, starting and ending with blue. In the upper left corner, at the hoist, is a blue square canton containing a white Greek cross, with arms of equal length that reach the edges of the square. The flag is 2:3 in proportion.

The shade of blue has changed over the years. It has been shown as a light sky blue and as a deeper royal blue, depending on the period and who was in power. Today it is a medium blue, set by law.

Greece has used more than one version of the design. Alongside the striped flag there is a plain flag with a white cross across a blue field, reaching the edges of the cloth. It is often seen on land and on government buildings, and is the other flag people mean when they ask why Greece has two flags. You can also see the striped design in miniature as the Greece flag emoji.

Greek flag meaning and symbolism

The most widely repeated explanation is about the stripes. The Greek motto during the war of independence was Eleftheria i Thanatos ("Freedom or Death"), which has nine syllables in Greek, one for each stripe. The meaning is traditional, and not written into law.

An alternative reading links the nine stripes to the nine Muses of ancient Greek mythology, who presided over the arts and sciences. It is a popular idea but less often cited than the syllable explanation.

The white cross stands for Greek Orthodox Christianity, the dominant faith of the country and a central marker of Greek identity under Ottoman rule. The colors are often said to represent the blue of the sea and sky and the white of the waves and clouds. Others see white as purity of the struggle for freedom. Blue and white were also the colors of the Bavarian royal house that provided Greece's first king, though the Greek flag used them before his arrival.

History of the Greek flag

There was no national flag in ancient Greece. City states used their own emblems, such as the owl of Athens or the lambda on the shields of Sparta, so an "ancient Greek flag" in the modern sense does not exist.

The modern flag comes out of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, which began in 1821. Rebels flew many banners, often showing a cross, the Virgin Mary or saints, with slogans like "Freedom or Death". A secret society called the Filiki Eteria prepared the uprising, and its leader Alexander Ypsilantis carried a flag with a phoenix rising from flames when he crossed into Moldavia in March 1821. Another well-known banner is a white cross on a blue field, and a blue-and-white color scheme became popular, especially at sea.

The First National Assembly at Epidaurus met in early 1822 and declared the blue and white colors official. The version with the cross on a blue field was used on land, while the striped design appeared on ships, and from the 1820s the two were developed side by side. When Greece became a monarchy in 1832 under the Bavarian King Otto, the flags gained a royal crown for state use.

In the 20th century the flags changed with each political regime. The military junta of 1967-74 used a darker blue. A law in 1978 made the striped design the single official national flag, ending the earlier split between land and sea flags, although the plain cross flag continues to be flown widely.