Flag of Ukraine

What the flag of Ukraine looks like

The flag of Ukraine has two horizontal stripes of equal width: blue at the top and yellow at the bottom. The proportions are 2:3. There is no emblem on the national flag. Ukrainian law describes the colors only as "blue and yellow"; a technical standard (DSTU 4512:2006) sets the exact shades, and the blue is a dark blue rather than sky blue.

Other flags combine the national colors with the golden trident (tryzub), for example some military and presidential flags, but the plain bicolor is the national flag. The flag emoji on the Ukraine flag emoji page is the plain bicolor, and you can get image files on the download page.

It is easy to remember by the order: blue over yellow. If the stripes are flipped, with yellow on top, the flag is not the Ukrainian national flag, although it was used in some earlier periods.

Ukraine flag meaning and symbolism

The most common popular explanation is that blue represents the sky and yellow represents the wheat fields. Ukraine is known for its fertile black soil and grain, so the picture of a blue sky over a golden field is easy to connect with the country's landscape. This is a traditional reading, not an official one.

The colors also have historical roots. Yellow and blue were common colors on coats of arms in Galicia, and the arms of Lviv still show a golden lion on a blue field. Blue-and-yellow banners are also recorded among Ruthenian forces at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 and in the Cossack period. Ukrainian law fixes the design of the flag but does not give an official meaning for the colors, so the readings above are traditional.

The flag is a symbol of Ukrainian statehood and identity, and it is flown on Flag Day on 23 August, the day before Independence Day.

History of the Ukrainian flag

The blue and yellow flag first appeared as a national symbol in 1848. In that year, during the revolutions across Europe, the Supreme Ruthenian Council in Lviv (then Lemberg, capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in the Austrian Empire) adopted a blue-and-yellow banner on 22 April, and two such banners were hung over the city hall in June.

In 1917-1918, after the fall of the Russian Empire, the blue-and-yellow flag was widely used in the struggle for independence, and the Ukrainian People's Republic established a blue-and-yellow flag as its official flag in 1918. The Hetmanate of Pavlo Skoropadskyi (1918) and the West Ukrainian People's Republic (1918-19) also used the colors, though in different arrangements. During this period yellow-over-blue and blue-over-yellow both appeared, and the blue-over-yellow order was finally accepted.

In the Soviet period, Ukraine was a Soviet republic, and its flag was a red banner, at first with the gold letters of the republic and from 1937 with a small gold hammer and sickle above them. In 1949 an azure stripe was added at the bottom, covering one third of the flag. The blue-and-yellow flag was banned, and displaying it could be punished. The flag was brought back during the movement for independence at the end of the 1980s: it was raised over the Kyiv City Council in 1990 and over the parliament building on 4 September 1991.

Ukraine declared independence on 24 August 1991. The blue-and-yellow flag was provisionally used for official ceremonies from August 1991, and the parliament officially restored it as the national flag on 28 January 1992.

Other flags used in Ukraine

Besides the national flag, some other flags often appear in news and photos. Many units of the Ukrainian army and volunteer groups use battle flags that combine the national colors with a unit emblem or the trident.

The Russian flag has three horizontal stripes of white, blue and red, so the only color the two flags share is blue, and they are not related. Soviet symbols, including the old Soviet flag, were banned in Ukraine by decommunization laws passed in 2015.