Flag of Estonia
Officially Republic of Estonia
Locally Eesti
What the flag looks like
Three equal horizontal stripes of blue, black and white.
What it means
Blue is commonly said to represent the sky, sea and lakes, black the soil and the nation's hard past, and white snow, birch bark and hope.
How to remember it
Sky over black earth over snow: Estonia
reads like a winter landscape, and no other flag puts black between blue and white.
Fun facts
- The tricolor began as the flag of the Estonian Students' Society, consecrated in Otepää in 1884, and became the national flag in 1918.
- It was banned under Soviet rule and raised again on Tallinn's Tall Hermann tower in February 1989.
Estonia at a glance
- Capital
- Tallinn
- Region
- Northern Europe
- Population
- 1.4 million
- Area
- 45,227 km²
- Languages
- Estonian
- Currency
- Euro (€)
- Flag adopted
- 1990
Flags often confused with Estonia
- Botswana: Botswana and Estonia both use blue, black and white stripes. Botswana is light blue with a thin black band in the middle; Estonia has three equal stripes, blue, black and white.