Iceland Flag / Icelandic Flag

Iceland Flag / Icelandic Flag

Iceland Flag

Iceland was first occupied in a.d. 874 by Vikings from Norway, who founded a republic and Europe's oldest parliament in a.d. 930 Having converted to Christianity in a.d. 1000, Iceland accepted Norwegian sovereignty in about 1263 in order to end a bitter civil war and, when Norway came under Danish rule in 1380, so, too, did Iceland, which continued to remain attached to Denmark even after Norway gained its independence in 1814. Icelandic nationalism grew during the 19th century, however, and although Iceland gained its independence in 1918, it remained linked to Denmark through their shared monarch, that is until 1944, when Iceland's citizens voted for complete independence in a referendum.

Iceland's first unofficial national flag was a white 'Scandinavian cross' on a dark-blue field that was first flown in 1897. Modeled on the Danish flag, the current Iceland flag was introduced in 1915 and officially adopted in 1918, when Iceland was a separate Danish realm and when the red of the Norwegian and Danish flags was added to the traditional blue-and-white colors of Iceland flag. The colors also symbolize Iceland's landscape: red for fire (Iceland has more than a hundred volcanoes), blue for water (denoting its spectacular geysers, lakes and fast-flowing rivers) and white for ice (nearly 15 percent of the country's surface is covered by snowfields and glaciers).