Iceland

What the source says

Checked against the constituting document

Hinn almenni þjóðfáni Íslendinga er heiðblár með mjallhvítum krossi og eldrauðum krossi innan í hvíta krossinum. Armar krossanna ná alveg út í jaðra fánans, og er breidd þeirra 2/9, en rauða krossins 1/9 af fánabreiddinni. Bláu reitirnir eru rétthyrndir ferhyrningar: stangarreitirnir jafnhliða og ytri reitirnir jafnbreiðir þeim, en helmingi lengri. Hlutfallið milli breiddar fánans og lengdar er 18:25.

[1] Lög um þjóðfána Íslendinga og ríkisskjaldarmerkið nr. 34/1944, 1. gr. (Alþingi (Parliament of Iceland)), read on 2026-07-17. Backs which colors the flag has, the proportions and the description of the design on this page.

Checked means compared against the quoted text, not read by a person. What the marks mean.

Colors and meaning

Sky blue[1] #003897
The Atlantic Ocean surrounding Iceland, and its mountains
Snow white[1] #FFFFFF
Iceland's snow and ice sheets
Fire red[1] #D72828
Iceland's volcanic fire

What the law specifies[1]

The flag law describes the field as sky blue, bearing a snow-white cross with a fire-red cross inside it. The arms of both crosses run to the edges of the flag; the white cross is two-ninths of the flag's width and the red one is one-ninth. The blue panels are rectangles: the two at the hoist are square, and the two in the fly are the same height but twice as long.

Symbolism and history

A red Nordic cross fimbriated in white sits on a blue field, formalized in 1915 during the push for independence from Denmark, adapted from the Danish cross template with Iceland's own fire-ice-sea color story.

Most similar flags

The 6 closest of the 194 other national flags, ranked by a similarity index computed from the flag images themselves. The number is that index, 0–100 — not a claim that the two flags are “X% identical”.

From this entry, not from the index: Nearly identical to Norway's flag with the colors reversed (Iceland's field is blue with a red cross, Norway's is red with a blue cross).

Computed at build time: each flag is rasterised to 64x48, and the score is 0.55 × colour overlap + 0.45 × structure. A different weighting would rank these differently. How the index works.

Sources

[1] Verified against Lög um þjóðfána Íslendinga og ríkisskjaldarmerkið nr. 34/1944, 1. gr. (Alþingi (Parliament of Iceland)) on 2026-07-17. Backs which colors the flag has, the proportions and the description of the design on this page. The passage it was checked against is quoted at the top of this entry.

Further reading: Flag of Iceland on Wikipedia