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Iceland

Island

18:25

by Edward Mooney, Jr. 2000-10-15

A blue flag with a red Scandinavian Cross, fimbriated white. The construction sheet is, of course, (7+1+2+1+7):(7+1+2+1+14). Used as the national flag and merchant ensign.
Zeljko Heimer, 31 January 2002

General flag information:

Flag history:

Government flags:

Local flags:

House flags of shipping companies:

Political Parties

See also:

Dimensions of the flag

The dimensions of the flag are 7:1:2:1:14 horizontally and 7:1:2:1:7 vertically. The swallow-tail flag has the dimensions of 7:1:2:1:9:12 horizontally and 7:1:2:1:7 vertically.
Mark Sensen, 25 September 1995

About dimensions in Scandinavian flags

by Edward Mooney, Jr.

Scandinavian crosses are measured by the width of the color, as shown in the diagram above. In the case of Iceland, horizontally there are 7 units of blue, 1 unit of white, 2 units of red, 1 unit of white, and 14 units of blue. Vertically the flag has 7 units of blue, 1 unit of white, 2 units of red, 1 unit of white and 7 units of blue.

See also: Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Norway, Sweden
Edward Mooney, Jr., 20 December 1999

General information

BACKGROUND: The Danish National Encyclopaedia has the following to say about the Icelandic national flag:

The flag has been official since 1915. The traditional colours of Iceland are blue and white; to those were added red, combined showing a historical connection to Norway. The cross in the flag symbolises the Scandinavian connection. From the 16th century until 1944 Iceland was represented in the Danish national arms; until 1903 by a crowned stockfish, a dried codfish sans head, and 1903-44 by a falcon.
Ole Andersen, 11 June 1998

Colours of the flag

From the outset, Iceland defined its blue colour as "sky blue" corresponding initially to ultramarine, in practice a quite light blue colour. Later, in the 1944 legislation on the national flag, the reference to ultramarine was dropped, and the term since then is just "sky blue." This would also means that the blue colour has become darker since the first adoption of the flag of Iceland.

The technical specification of the blue colour is in the SCOTDIC system (Standard Colour of Textile - Dictionaire Internationale de la Couleur) and is found in a 1991 proclamation on the flag colours. The blue colour corresponds to SCOTDIC No. 693009. The text of the announcement is found here:

Althing (Iceland) Flag Colors Proclamation

In recent years, the government of Iceland considered issuing colour specifications in the more well known Pantone Matching System and in the CMYK system. For printing, PMS 287 and CMYK 100-69-0-11.5 were proposed for the blue colour, and PMS 1795 and CMYK 0-94-100-0 for the red colour. However, no official action has been taken, and the PMS and CMYK specifications remain unofficial proposals.
Jan Oskar Engene, 20 April 2000

As the colours are defined by the SCOTDIC scale, Album des Pavillons provides an approximation in Pantone (somewhat different from the guidelines mentioned on FOTW). The best Browser-safe match I can provide is blue: 0-0-204, and red 255-0-0.
Zeljko Heimer, 31 January 2002