Upernavik first day in class 2007-08-14 2

The flag of Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit erfalasuat, da, Grønlands flag) was designed by

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is ...

native Thue Christiansen. It features two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red (bottom) with a counter-changed red-and-white disk slightly to the hoist side of centre. The entire flag measures 18 by 12 parts; each stripe measures 6 parts; the disk is 8 parts in diameter, horizontally offset by 7 parts from the hoist to the centre of the circle, and vertically centered. Its local name in the

Greenlandic language Greenlandic ( kl, kalaallisut, link=no ; da, grønlandsk ) is an Eskimo–Aleut language with about 56,000 speakers, mostly Greenlandic Inuit in Greenland. It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada such as Inuktitut. It is the mos ...

is ''Erfalasorput'', which means "our flag". The term ''Aappalaartoq'' (meaning "the red") is also used for both the Greenlandic flag and the

flag of Denmark The national flag of Denmark ( da, Dannebrog, ) is red with a white Nordic cross, which means that the cross extends to the edges of the flag and the vertical part of the cross is shifted to the hoist side. A banner with a white-on-red cross is ...

(''Dannebrog''). Today, Greenlanders display both the ''Erfalasorput'' and the ''Dannebrog''—often side by side. The flag of Greenland is the only national flag of a Nordic country or territory without a Nordic Cross.

History

Greenland first entertained the idea of a flag of its own in 1973 when five Greenlanders proposed a green, white and blue flag. The following year, a newspaper solicited eleven design proposals (all but one of which was a Nordic cross) and polled the people to determine the most popular. The

was preferred to the others. Little came of this effort. In 1978,

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

granted

home rule Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wit ...

to Greenland, making it an equal member of the ''

Danish Realm The Danish Realm ( da, Danmarks Rige; fo, Danmarkar Ríki; kl, Danmarkip Naalagaaffik), officially the Kingdom of Denmark (; ; ), is a sovereign state located in Northern Europe and Northern North America. It consists of metropolitan Denm ...

''. The home rule government held an official call for flag proposals, receiving 555 (of which 293 were submitted by Greenlanders). Flag of greenland construction

The deciding committee came to no consensus, so more proposals were solicited. Finally the present red-and-white design by Thue Christiansen narrowly won over a green-and-white Nordic cross by a vote of fourteen to eleven. Christiansen's red-and-white flag was officially adopted on 21 June 1985. To honour the tenth anniversary of the ''Erfalasorput'', the Greenland

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

issued commemorative

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...

s and a leaflet by the flag's creator. He described the white stripe as representing the

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

s and ice cap, which cover more than 80% of the island; the red stripe, the

ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

; the red semicircle, the sun, with its bottom part sunk in the ocean; and the white semicircle, the

iceberg An iceberg is a piece of freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...

s and pack ice. The design is also reminiscent of the setting

sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrare ...

half-submerged below the horizon and reflected on the sea. In 1985 it was reported that Greenland's flag had exactly the same motif as the flag of the Danish rowing club HEI Rosport, which was founded before Greenland's flag was chosen. It is not clear whether this is a case of plagiarism or just a coincidence, but the rowing club gave Greenland permission to use their flag. The colours of the ''Erfalasorput'' are the same as those of the ''

Dannebrog Dannebrog (until the mid-20th century often spelled Danebrog) may refer to: Flags and orders * The national Flag of Denmark * Order of the Dannebrog The Order of the Dannebrog ( da, Dannebrogordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry institu ...

'', symbolizing Greenland's place in the Danish realm.

Other proposals

References

External links

FOTW: Greenland
- History of the ''Erfalasorput''

for a Nordic cross design * http://www.flagscorner.com/greenland-flag/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Flag of Greenland

National symbols of Greenland

1989 establishments in Greenland

History

Other proposals

See also

References

External links