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Iceland

Ísland

Last modified: 2024-12-21 by rob raeside
Keywords: iceland | island | cross | scandinavian cross |
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[Flag of Iceland] 18:25 image by Zoltan Horvath, 12 June 2024


General flag information:
Flag history:
Government flags:
Local flags:

House flags of shipping companies:


Political parties:


Universities:

Sports flags:


Varia:


See also:

Other sites:


Dimensions of the flag

The dimensions of the flag are 7:1:2:1:14 horizontally and 7:1:2:1:7 vertically. The swallow-tail flag has the dimensions of 7:1:2:1:9:12 horizontally and 7:1:2:1:7 vertically.
Mark Sensen, 25 September 1995

A blue flag with a red Scandinavian Cross, fimbriated white. The construction sheet is, of course, (7+1+2+1+7):(7+1+2+1+14). Used as the national flag and merchant ensign.
Željko Heimer, 31 January 2002


Colour specifications

A Government website has a page about Icelandic flags with illustrations and color standards: https://www.government.is/topics/governance-and-national-symbols/icelandic-national-flag/
Zoltan Horvath, 12 June 2024

The protocol manual for the London 2012 Olympics (Flags and Anthems Manual London 2012 [loc12]) provides recommendations for national flag designs. Each NOC was sent an image of the flag, including the PMS shades, for their approval by LOCOG. Once this was obtained, LOCOG produced a 60 x 90 cm version of the flag for further approval. So, while these specs may not be the official, government, version of each flag, they are certainly what the NOC believed the flag to be.
For Iceland: PMS 287 blue, 1795 red. The vertical flag is simply the horizontal version turned 90 degrees clockwise.
Ian Sumner, 10 October 2012

The Flag Manual - Beijing 2008 gives Pantone colors: PMS 179 (red), and PMS 300 (blue).

The Album des Pavillons 2000 [pay00] (Corr. No. 5.) gives approximate colors in Pantone and CMYK systems:
Red: Pantone 185 c, CMYK 0-90-80-0
Blue: Pantone 293 c, CMYK 100-60-0-0

The Album des Pavillons 2023 specifies the colors of the flags in three color systems.
Blue: Pantone 2728c, CMYK 94-73-0-0, RGB 0-71-182
Red: Pantone 2347c, CMYK 0-100-100-0, RGB 225-0-15

Vexilla Mundi gives colors in Pantone system: PMS 287C (blue), PMS 1795C (red), and PMS White.

Wikipedia refers to Icelandic Flag Standard and gives color specifications as follows:
Official colors:
Blue: SCOTDIC 693009
White: SCOTDIC 95
Red: SCOTDIC ICELAND FLAG RED

Color specifications issued by government:
Blue: Hex: #02529C, RGB 2-82-156, Pantone 287, CMYK 100-75-2-18, Avery 520
White: Hex: #FFF FFF, RGB 255-255-255, Pantone 1c, CMYK 0-0-0-0, Avery 501
Red: Hex: #DC1E35, RGB 220-30-53, Pantone 199, CMYK 0-100-72-0, Avery 503

Flag Color Codes gives the following color values:
Light Blue: Hex. # 02529C, RGB 2-82-156, CMYK 100-75-2-18, Pantone 287, RAL 5017
Snowy White: Hex. # FFF FFF, RGB 255-255-255, CMYK N/A, Pantone N/A, RAL N/A
Fiery Red: Hex. # DC1E35, RGB 220-30-53, CMYK 0-100-72-0, Pantone 199, RAL 3028

Zoltan Horvath, 12 June 2024


About dimensions in Scandinavian flags

[Scandinavian Cross dimensions] image by Edward Mooney, Jr.

Scandinavian crosses are measured by the width of the color, as shown in the diagram above. In the case of Iceland, horizontally there are 7 units of blue, 1 unit of white, 2 units of red, 1 unit of white, and 14 units of blue. Vertically the flag has 7 units of blue, 1 unit of white, 2 units of red, 1 unit of white and 7 units of blue.

See also: Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Norway, Sweden
Edward Mooney, Jr., 20 December 1999


General information

BACKGROUND: The Danish National Encyclopaedia has the following to say about the Icelandic national flag:

The flag has been official since 1915. The traditional colours of Iceland are blue and white; to those were added red, combined showing a historical connection to Norway. The cross in the flag symbolises the Scandinavian connection. From the 16th century until 1944 Iceland was represented in the Danish national arms; until 1903 by a crowned stockfish, a dried codfish sans head, and 1903-44 by a falcon.
Ole Andersen, 11 June 1998


Colours of the flag

From the outset, Iceland defined its blue colour as "sky blue" corresponding initially to ultramarine, in practice a quite light blue colour. Later, in the 1944 legislation on the national flag, the reference to ultramarine was dropped, and the term since then is just "sky blue." This would also means that the blue colour has become darker since the first adoption of the flag of Iceland.

The technical specification of the blue colour is in the SCOTDIC system (Standard Colour of Textile - Dictionaire Internationale de la Couleur) and is found in a 1991 proclamation on the flag colours. The blue colour corresponds to SCOTDIC No. 693009. The text of the announcement is found here:

Althing (Iceland) Flag Colors Proclamation

In recent years, the government of Iceland considered issuing colour specifications in the more well known Pantone Matching System and in the CMYK system. For printing, PMS 287 and CMYK 100-69-0-11.5 were proposed for the blue colour, and PMS 1795 and CMYK 0-94-100-0 for the red colour. However, no official action has been taken, and the PMS and CMYK specifications remain unofficial proposals.
Jan Oskar Engene, 20 April 2000

As the colours are defined by the SCOTDIC scale, Album des Pavillons provides an approximation in Pantone (somewhat different from the guidelines mentioned on FOTW). The best Browser-safe match I can provide is blue: 0-0-204, and red 255-0-0.
Željko Heimer, 31 January 2002