Cyprus Flag

The Republic of Cyprus is located south of Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and is considered a Eurasian island. Of all the Mediterranean islands, Cyprus is the third largest. The capital of Cyprus is Nicosia, which is also the largest city. Their official languages are Greek and Turkish.

After Cyprus gained their independence from Britain, they adopted the Cyprus national flag on August 16, 1960. Mgr. Makarios, the President of the republic selected the Cyprus national flag in 1960. In 2004, they selected a new flag of Cyprus from hundreds of entries entered in a flag competition of Turkish and Greek Cypriots but a close public vote rejected this Cyprus flag.

A flag of Cyprus has a white background with a golden yellow map of Cyprus centered in the middle of the white background. Below the yellow map on Cyprus flags, are two green olive branches. They deliberately chose the Cyprus national flag colors to aid in promoting peace between the antagonistic or incompatible Greeks and Turks living in Cyprus. On the Cyprus national flag, the two green olive branches also represent peace. On Cyprus flags, they intentionally avoided using blue, which is a Greek color and red, which is the Turkish color. Originally, on the flag of Cyprus, the golden yellow island of Cyprus was going to be a copper color but was too difficult to reproduce.

Cyprus’s coat of arms has the same colors as the Cyprus national flag. Their coat of arms has a white dove flying and carrying an olive branch. A white dove is a familiar symbol for peace. This white dove is centered on a copper yellow color shield. Under the white dove is printed ‘1960’, which represents the year Cyprus became independent for the British. The copper yellow color on the shield found on the coat of arms represents Cyprus’s many large deposits of chalcopyrite or copper ore.

Ancient warriors on battlefields were the ones who originally had the idea of flying pieces of cloth or flags, as were shields, to identify foe or friend. They adopted the idea of carrying a pole with a banner, religious device, other object attached for identification. Modern flags forerunners were emblems used to cover armor and for identity. The first people to use cloth flags were the Romans. The Cyprus national flag and all other national flags have much symbolism and tradition associated with the symbols and colors.