What do the colours of the Cyprus flag mean?

White: peace, deliberately chosen as a neutral field. Copper: the island's copper deposits, which gave it its name. Green: the olive branches, for peace between the two communities.

How do you tell the Cyprus flag from the Kosovo one?

Kosovo's field is blue, its map is gold, and it has six white stars instead of olive branches.

When was the Cyprus flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1960, and its official ratio is 3:5.

The flag of Cyprus

A white field with a copper-coloured silhouette of the island above two crossed green olive branches.

Ratio 3:5 · current design adopted 1960

Cyprus and Kosovo are the only countries that put a map of themselves on their flag. The 1960 constitution required the flag to use neither blue and white nor red and white — the colours of Greece and Turkey — and to show no cross or crescent, which left copper and olive as almost the only options. The island's name and the word copper share a root, so the colour is a pun on the country's name. The design came from a competition won by the art teacher İsmet Güney, a Turkish Cypriot.

Flags it gets confused with

Flag	How to tell them apart
Kosovo	Kosovo's field is blue, its map is gold, and it has six white stars instead of olive branches.

What the colours mean

Flag laws usually specify a Pantone chip, a CMYK mix or just a colour name. Converting any of those to sRGB is lossy, which is why published hex values disagree.

The symbols on it

What	What it stands for
Map of Cyprus	The island itself, in the copper colour of its ancient mines
Olive branches	Peace between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities

Ratio: 3:5
Current design adopted: 1960
Colours: white, copper, green

Common questions

What does the flag of Cyprus look like?: A white field with a copper-coloured silhouette of the island above two crossed green olive branches.
What do the colours of the Cyprus flag mean?: White: peace, deliberately chosen as a neutral field. Copper: the island's copper deposits, which gave it its name. Green: the olive branches, for peace between the two communities.
How do you tell the Cyprus flag from the Kosovo one?: Kosovo's field is blue, its map is gold, and it has six white stars instead of olive branches.
When was the Cyprus flag adopted?: The current design dates from 1960, and its official ratio is 3:5.

Cyprus Capital, area, population and currency
The flag of Kosovo Routinely mistaken for this one
Every flag with white in it
The flag of United States Ratio 10:19
The flag of India Ratio 2:3
The flag of United Kingdom Ratio 1:2
The flag of Canada Ratio 1:2
The flag of Japan Ratio 2:3
The flag of France Ratio 2:3
The flag of Russia Ratio 2:3
The flag of Brazil Ratio 7:10

Sources

The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (Public domain (US Government))

How these figures are compiled and checked