Kosovo Flag

The flag came about after the Kosovo Unity Team, backed by the United Nations, organized an international design competition in June 2007. The competition attracted more than 993 entries. The required entries had to be rectangular, in a proportion of 2:3, and reflective of the multi-ethnic nature of Kosovo. Three designs were chosen by the Kosovo Symbols Commission which were forwarded to the Assembly of Kosovo on February 4, 2008. One of the proposals had vertical black, white and red stripes, and another one had vertical black, white and red stripes with a spiral in the center of the white stripe while the last one had the map of Kosovo on a blue background surrounded by five stars with varying sizes. On February 2008, the Assembly of Kosovo voted for the proposal with Kosovo’s map, but proposed a modification to add one more star to the five, then have them forming an arc above the map all in equal size. The equal size is to show that all the ethnic groups are equal.

The flag of Kosovo has a golden outline of Kosovo on a blue background, with six equal stars forming an arc above it. The stars represent the six different ethnic groups of Kosovo. Adopted on February 17, 2008, this flag resulted from an international competition by the Kosovo Unity Team in June 2007 that saw close to a thousand entries. It is in the proportion of 5:7. The flag was among three selected by the Kosovo Symbols Commission then forwarded to the Assembly of Kosovo to be voted on. There were a couple of changes done to the proposed flag.

Before independence, Kosovo had no flag of its own. They used the United Nations flag for the nine years, and in 2000 their first President Ibrahim Rugoya tried introducing "The Flag of Dardania" which was not popular. The map of Kosovo bears some resemblance to the EU flag and that of Bosnia and Herzegovina regarding colours and shapes used. It is one of the only two countries that have their maps on the flag, the other one being Cyprus.

Before this adoption, the first President of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugoya, had introduced the "Flag of Dardania" on October 29, 2000. It was blue with a red disk at the center that inscribed Albanian eagle. It, however, wasn’t popular. In the previous years also before Kosovo’s independence, Kosovo lacked a flag of its own and SFR Yugoslavia, and SR Serbia flags were flown. When Kosovo was under the United Nations, between 1999 and 2008, they used a flag of the UN.