At One Place

The flag of Finland

The flag of Finland
A white field with a blue Nordic cross offset toward the hoist.
Ratio 11:18 · current design adopted 1918
Finland

Snow and lakes: a rare case where the official symbolism is entirely geographic and entirely uncontested. The colours had been used by Finnish yacht clubs from the 1860s, and the flag was adopted in May 1918, months after independence from Russia — the alternative proposal, a red field with a yellow lion, lost partly because red had become politically loaded during the civil war. The state flag adds the coat of arms at the crossing, and the presidential flag adds a swallow-tail and the Cross of Liberty. The blue was formally darkened in 1920 after complaints that the original shade faded badly outdoors.

Flags it gets confused with

Finland
Sweden

Drawn at each flag’s own official ratio, which is itself the difference in some of these pairs.

Flag How to tell them apart
Sweden Sweden inverts the palette — a blue field with a yellow cross.

What the colours mean

  • White #FFFFFF Snow
  • Blue #002F6C The country's lakes — there are around 188,000 of them

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.

Ratio
11:18
Current design adopted
1918
Colours
white, blue

Common questions

What does the flag of Finland look like?
A white field with a blue Nordic cross offset toward the hoist.
What do the colours of the Finland flag mean?
White: snow. Blue: the country's lakes — there are around 188,000 of them.
How do you tell the Finland flag from the Sweden one?
Sweden inverts the palette — a blue field with a yellow cross.
When was the Finland flag adopted?
The current design dates from 1918, and its official ratio is 11:18.

Related pages

Sources

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

How these figures are compiled and checked