Flag of Estonia

Flag origins

Estonia’s blue-black-white horizontal tricolour began as the Estonian Students’ Society’s colors, selected in 1881. Its first flag was blessed at Otepää on June 4, 1884. As the national movement grew, the colors came to represent Estonia and were adopted nationally in 1918. Their meanings were not strictly fixed from the outset. The government gives common interpretations: blue for sky, future and truth; black for the earth, the past and love of the homeland; and white for snow, spiritual light and hope.

Flag story

A student society’s flag grew into a national flag. When the Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1940, the colors were banned, but members secretly hid the original 1884 flag at a farm and protected it for about fifty years. It was recovered on December 26, 1991, following restored independence, and is preserved and displayed at the Estonian National Museum. The government describes this as the oldest surviving original national flag. That refers to the physical first flag still existing, not to its design being the oldest national flag design in continuous use.

Editorial notes and references

Edited by ABELHA WORKS. The English text translates the administrator-edited Japanese description. Legends should be distinguished from documented history. General reference links do not substantiate every statement in the text.

• Estonia — general information on Wikipedia
• Japan MOFA: countries and regions (Japanese)

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