Sami Flag (Lapland)

The Sami flag represents a people, not a country. The Sami, formerly called Lapps, live in the north of Norway, Sweden and Finland and on the Russian Kola peninsula, a land they call Sápmi. Their flag brings together the colours of their traditional garments and a circle that is at once sun and moon.

How it came about

The first Sami flag was drawn in 1962 by the politician Marit Stueng, from Karasjok (Norway), with the blue, red and yellow of the gákti, the Sami garment. In 1977 the artist Synnøve Persen painted a similar design during the protests against a dam on the Alta river, and it became the symbol of that struggle.

Years later the newspaper Sámi Áigi called a competition that received more than seventy entries. Astrid Båhl’s won, a Sami artist from the coast of Skibotn. The 13th Nordic Sami Conference, meeting in Åre (Sweden), approved it unanimously on 15 August 1986.

How it has changed

Båhl kept the base of the previous flag and added the green and the circle.

1. 

   1962-1986

   Unofficial flag of three colours, with red next to the flagpole and blue taking up more than half.

2. 

   1986

   The green, much used in the garments of the south, and the circle of sun and moon are added.

What it means

• Red, green, yellow and blue

  the colours of the gákti. Since 1986 they are known as the Sami national colours.

• Red half of the circle

  the sun.

• Blue half of the circle

  the moon.

• The whole circle

  a symbol that appears on many Sami shaman drums, and in a poem that calls the Sami ‘sons of the sun’.

Fun facts

1. On the drums it was only red

   On the shaman drums the sun symbol was painted only in red, with a dye from the alder, a sacred tree. The flag splits it into two colours to add the moon.

2. Sons and daughters of the sun

   The circle was chosen thinking of a poem that the shepherd Anders Fjellner collected in the mid-19th century from a joik, the traditional Sami chant. It tells that the Sami descend from a son of the Sun, and the Sami anthem repeats the idea.

3. Compulsory in Norwegian town halls

   Since 2003 it has official status in Norway, the country with the most Sami, and all municipalities must fly it on 6 February, Sami National Day.

4. Its birthday is twice

   15 August, the day it was approved, is also the anniversary of the birth of Isak Saba, author of the lyrics of the Sami anthem. That is why it is one of the days it is flown.

5. A painting in the National Museum

   Synnøve Persen’s works with her 1977 flag proposal entered the National Museum of Norway in 2018.

Location

Buy the flag

Buy the flag on AmazonAffiliate link: if you buy, Wiki Banderas receives a small commission.