A red and yellow Nordic cross on a blue field that mixes the colours of Sweden and Finland, the two countries of its history.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.
It is a rectangular field with a 17:26 ratio, blue, with a red Nordic cross edged in yellow.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
Every date in its story, at a glance.
In 1809 Sweden lost Finland to Russia, and the islands went with it
When Finland became independent in 1917
The League of Nations, forerunner of the UN, decided in 1921 that they would stay with Finland,…
From 1922 many islanders used a flag without permission: three stripes
The official flag arrived in the 1950s
In the end the red cross was chosen, and the new flag was hoisted for the first time on 3 April…
A 1992 law fixes its measurements
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Åland is blue, with a yellow cross and, inside it, a narrower red cross. Åland is an archipelago of thousands of islands between Sweden and Finland. It belongs to Finland, but its inhabitants speak Swedish and govern themselves with a lot of autonomy. Its flag tells that double history.
For centuries Åland was a province of Sweden. In 1809 Sweden lost Finland to Russia, and the islands went with it. When Finland became independent in 1917, the inhabitants of Åland asked to return to Sweden. The League of Nations, forerunner of the UN, decided in 1921 that they would stay with Finland, but with autonomy and with their Swedish language protected.
From 1922 many islanders used a flag without permission: three stripes, blue, yellow and blue. The official flag arrived in the 1950s. The first proposal was the cross of Sweden with a blue cross inside, and the Finnish president rejected it because it looked too much like the Swedish one. In the end the red cross was chosen, and the new flag was hoisted for the first time on 3 April 1954 in Mariehamn, the capital.
Before the current flag there was only one unofficial flag.
1922-1954
The islanders use, without official recognition, a flag of three stripes with the colours of Sweden and of the Åland coat of arms.
1954
The red cross with a yellow edge on a blue field is adopted. A 1992 law fixes its measurements.
The flag mixes the colours of the two countries Åland is joined to:
Blue and yellow
the colours of Sweden and also those of the coat of arms of Åland, a golden deer on a blue field.
Red and yellow
the colours of the coat of arms of Finland, a golden lion on a red field.
Nordic cross
the belonging to the Nordic countries, as on the flags of its two neighbours.
The first official proposal was almost the flag of Sweden with a blue cross added. The President of Finland, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, rejected it.
At first many islanders protested about the red, because it had no tradition on the islands. The heraldry experts reminded them that a Swedish king had already used a flag with that same design.
Åland celebrates its flag day on the last Sunday of April. And since 1993 the islands’ ships may sail with it instead of the Finnish flag.
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Where it is and what borders it.
Test what you have read about the flag of Åland.
Text based on the article “Bandera de Åland” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
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