Flag of Estonia

Estonia

Name	Sinimustvalge
Use	Civil and state flag, civil ensign
Proportion	7:11
Adopted	21 November 1918 7 August 1990
Design	A horizontal triband of blue, black and white
Variant flag of Estonia
Use	Naval ensign
Proportion	7:13
Adopted	1991
Design	Tri-color, swallow-tailed, defaced with the shield of the state arms off-set towards hoist.

The national flag of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti lipp) is a tricolour featuring three equal horizontal bands of blue (top), black, and white. The normal size is 105 × 165 cm. In Estonian it is colloquially called the "sinimustvalge" (literally "blue-black-white"), after the colours of the bands.

The story of the flag begins 17 September 1881, when the constituent Assembly of the first Estonian national student Corps "Vironia" (modern Estonian Students Society) in the city of Tartu was also identified in color, later became national.

The flag became associated with Estonian nationalism and was used as the national flag (riigilipp) when the Estonian Declaration of Independence was issued on February 24, 1918. The flag was formally adopted on November 21, 1918. December 12, 1918, was the first time the flag was raised as the national symbol atop of the Pikk Hermann Tower in Tallinn.

The invasion by the Soviet Union in June 1940 led to the flag's ban. It was taken down from the most symbolic location, the tower of Pikk Hermann in Tallinn, on June 21, 1940, when Estonia was still formally independent. On the next day, 22 June, it was hoisted along with the red flag. The tricolour disappeared completely from the tower on July 27, 1940, and was replaced by the flag of the Estonian SSR.

During the German occupation from 1941 until 1944, the flag was accepted as the ethnic flag of Estonians but not the national flag. After the German retreat from Tallinn in September 1944, the Estonian flag was hoisted once again.