---
title: "Flag of Greenland: colours and meaning"
description: "What every colour and symbol on the Greenland flag stands for, its official 2:3 ratio, and the year the current design was adopted."
url: https://atoneplace.net/flag/greenland/
site: "At One Place"
---

# The flag of Greenland

**The flag of Greenland: A white band over a red band, with a large disc offset toward the hoist whose upper half is red and lower half white — the reverse of the field behind it.**

Ratio 2:3 · current design adopted 1985

Erfalasorput — "our flag" — is a rare piece of genuinely elegant design: the disc inverts the field it sits on, so the red half of the sun sits above the white land and the white half of the iceberg sits below the red sea. It was chosen in 1985 from 555 proposals, and the winner, Thue Christiansen, was a Greenlandic artist and politician. Notably it avoids the Nordic cross entirely, unlike every other flag in the Danish realm including the Faroes'. The red and white are the Danish colours, which was the concession that made adoption possible.

## 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.*

- **White** (#FFFFFF) — The ice cap, and the snow-covered land
- **Red** (#C8102E) — The sun, and the ocean; also the Danish Dannebrog red

## The symbols on it

| What | What it stands for |
| --- | --- |
| The half-and-half disc | The sun setting into the sea, and the icebergs rising from it |

- **Ratio:** 2:3
- **Current design adopted:** 1985
- **Colours:** white, red

## Common questions

### What does the flag of Greenland look like?

A white band over a red band, with a large disc offset toward the hoist whose upper half is red and lower half white — the reverse of the field behind it.

### What do the colours of the Greenland flag mean?

White: the ice cap, and the snow-covered land. Red: the sun, and the ocean; also the Danish Dannebrog red.

### When was the Greenland flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1985, and its official ratio is 2:3.

## Related pages

- [Greenland](https://atoneplace.net/country/greenland/)
- [Every flag with white in it](https://atoneplace.net/flag/colour/white/)
- [The flag of United States](https://atoneplace.net/flag/united-states/)
- [The flag of India](https://atoneplace.net/flag/india/)
- [The flag of United Kingdom](https://atoneplace.net/flag/united-kingdom/)
- [The flag of Canada](https://atoneplace.net/flag/canada/)
- [The flag of Japan](https://atoneplace.net/flag/japan/)
- [The flag of France](https://atoneplace.net/flag/france/)
- [The flag of Russia](https://atoneplace.net/flag/russia/)
- [The flag of Brazil](https://atoneplace.net/flag/brazil/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]