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. The government has never specified exactly which shade of blue should be used, and the flag has tended to be a relatively dark blue since the late 1960s.

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 was the land flag for much of the country's history, and it is the other flag people mean when they ask why Greece has two flags. The same cross-on-blue pattern is still used as the Navy's jack and, in a square version with a saint in the center, as the war flag of the Army and Air Force. 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 nine stripes have no official meaning, and this reading is traditional.

Another reading says the nine stripes stand for the nine geographical regions of Greece.

The white cross symbolizes Christianity. White and blue might symbolize the colors of the Greek sky and sea.

History of the Greek flag

There was no national flag in ancient Greece. City states used their own emblems, 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 adopted the national flag on 13 January 1822, abolishing the revolutionary flags. A decree of 15 March 1822 set a plain white cross on blue for the land flag and the nine stripes with the cross in the canton for the naval ensign. When the Kingdom of Greece was established in 1832, King Otto added the royal coat of arms in the center of the cross for military flags, and from 1863 crowns were used in its place.

In the 20th century the flags changed with each political regime. The crowns were removed in 1924 with the Second Hellenic Republic, and the proportions were set at 2:3 in 1930. Under the military junta of 1967-74 the sea flag was made the sole national flag in 1969 and the proportions were changed to 7:12 in 1970. After the restoration of democracy, a law of 1975 made the plain cross flag the sole flag, and in 1978 the striped sea flag became the single national flag again, with a ratio of 2:3.