Ainu people of the Kuriles

Last modified: 2025-03-15 by rob raeside
Keywords: ainu | kuriles |
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• About the flag

• Sakhalin
• Russian unofficial regional and ethnic flags
• Ainu in Japan

The filename of the original image at http://kunnesiri.narod.ru/flag.gif indicates that this graphic is meant to be a flag indeed (both as the English word "flag" and as the romanization of Russian equivalent "флаг"), but at http://kunnesiri.narod.ru it’s not easy to figure out exactly what is this the flag of.

Given that the emblem on the flag is the same as the one on the Ainu flag developed in Hokkaido by Bikki Sunazawa in 1973 (quoting Nozomi Kariyasu, 21 Mar 1999), this is very likely a cross-border Ainu flag, but it’s apparently not in widespread use - being therefore a proposal awaiting recognition.

It’s a ~2:3 white flag with Ainu symbol on it, the spiral elements in light green instead of white, and along the top and bottom edges a thin red lines with dark blue ornaments, not reaching the fly nor hoist edges. The ornamentation repeats six times in a pattern that looks like a pair of curly brackets enclosing a pipe ("{|}"), laid horizontally.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 10 February 2025