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Cyprus Flag - The Republic of Cyprus Flag

Cyprus is the only country to display its land area on its official flag.

Under the Cypriot Constitution - any citizen of the Republic or any body, corporate or unincorporate other than public, whose members are citizens of the Republic, shall have the right to fly on their premises the flag of the Republic or the Greek or the Turkish flag without any restriction.

The Flag of Cyprus came into use on August 16, 1960 under the Zurich and London Agreements, whereby a constitution was drafted and Cyprus was proclaimed an independent state. According to the Constitution, the flag should not have blue or red colours as they are the colours of the flags of Greece and Turkey and should not feature religious symbols such as a cross or a crescent. The flag should look neutral. This national flag design came about as the result of a national competition. The adopted design was the work of a Turkish Cypriot teacher and artist Ismet Guney.

The national flag features a map of the entirety of the island, with two olive branches below, a symbol of peace, on white, another symbol of peace.

The olive branches, joined together at the branch, signify peace between the ethnic Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

The map on the flag is a copper-yellow colour, symbolizing the large deposits of copper ore on the island, chiefly in the form of chalcopyrite, which is yellow in colour, from which it allegedly received its name. Size: in ratio 3:5

Founded in 1193, the Kingdom of Cyprus experienced centuries of conflict. Cyprus was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1571, which increased Turkish settlement on the island. It then fell under British control in 1878. The flag, adopted at independence in 1960, deliberately chose peaceful and neutral symbols in an attempt to indicate harmony between the rival Greek and Turkish communities, an ideal that has not yet been realized. In 1974, Turkish forces occupied the northern part of the island, forming the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The two parts of the island also fly the national flags of Greece and Turkey.

The colours are based on the official website of the government of the Republic of Cyprus; yellow is Pantone 144-C and green is 336-C.

Previous flags of Cyprus include a similar flag, used from April to August 1960, where the island map is not a solid yellow but an outline map of Cyprus of white bordered in yellow and the Blue Ensign of Colonial Cyprus, from 1922.

Under the terms of the Annan Plan for Cyprus, named in recognition of the then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who largely devised the proposal in conjunction with Didier Pfirter, a United Nations proposal to settle the Cyprus dispute, a new national flag would have been adopted by a reconstituted confederate republic of Cyprus. Unlike the current official flag, this version consciously incorporates colours representing Greece (blue) and Turkey (red) alongside a large copper-yellow band for Cyprus; the heraldic blazon is per fess Azure and Gules, charged with a Spanish fess Or fimbriated Argent. It is possible that any future Cyprus settlement will include the adoption of a new flag.