Åland Islands Emoji & Symbols

The Åland flag emoji 🇦🇽 is not one picture in Unicode. It is two regional indicator letters, A and X, Åland's own ISO country code, which phones and apps draw together as the flag. Most country and territory flags, Åland's among them, became emoji in 2015. Where flags are not supported, notably Windows' own emoji font, the reader sees the letters AX instead; the text underneath is the same, so it still shows as a flag on a phone.

The flag itself is a blue field with a yellow Nordic cross, and inside it a narrower red cross. Åland has flown it officially since 1954. Its blue and yellow echo the flag of Sweden, the islands' language and old ties, while the red is usually read as a nod to Finland, whose coat of arms is red and yellow. The Åland flag meaning people are after is exactly that mix: a Swedish-speaking people inside Finland. People who cannot use the flag paste its colours as hearts, 💙💛❤️.

Two days fill feeds with 🇦🇽. Åland's Flag Day (Ålands flaggas dag) falls on the last Sunday of April, and Autonomy Day (Självstyrelsedagen) on 9 June, the anniversary of the first meeting of Åland's own parliament in 1922. On both, the Åland flag is officially flown at regional and municipal public buildings, and 🇦🇽🎉 or 🇦🇽💙💛❤️ makes a fitting post.

Åland Islands symbols: ships, the deer and the peace islands

Åland is an archipelago of thousands of islands and skerries between Finland and Sweden, at the mouth of the Gulf of Bothnia, and almost everything about it comes from the sea. ⛵ Sailboat and 🚢 Ship are its truest emoji: the capital, Mariehamn, was home to Gustaf Erikson's fleet, the last great fleet of commercial sailing ships, which raced grain from Australia to Europe into the 1940s. One of those ships, the four-masted barque Pommern, built in 1903, is still moored in the West Harbour as a museum ship. ⚓, 🧭 and 🛟 round out that maritime pride.

🦌 Deer stands for Åland's coat of arms, a golden deer on a blue shield. 🕊️ Dove is for Åland's status as a demilitarised and neutral zone: after British and French forces destroyed the Russian fortress of Bomarsund in 1854, during the Crimean War, the islands were demilitarised in 1856, and the 1921 Åland Convention confirmed it. That same year the League of Nations settled the Åland question: the islands stayed with Finland, with self-government and guarantees for their Swedish language. Ålanders still call their home the islands of peace, and 🕊️🇦🇽 says it in two characters.

⛴️ Ferry and 🛳️ Passenger Ship are the everyday version. The big Baltic ferries between Finland and Sweden stop at Åland, and the Viking Line and Eckerö shipping companies are based in Mariehamn. Åland is in the EU but outside its tax area, which is why those ferries can sell tax-free goods on the crossing.

Åland pancake 🥞, black bread 🍞 and apples 🍎: food emoji

🥞 Pancakes on an Åland menu means Ålandspannkaka, the Åland pancake. It is nothing like a thin crêpe: a thick, oven-baked pudding of rice or semolina porridge, eggs and milk, flavoured with cardamom and served in squares with prune compote and whipped cream. 🥞🍮 is the closest emoji pair. 🍞 Bread stands for svartbröd, Åland's dark, slightly sweet rye bread, baked slowly and eaten with butter and Baltic herring 🐟.

🍎 and 🍏 belong here too: the islands' mild climate suits orchards, and Åland apples are known across Finland. 🍓 and 🥔 are the taste of a Nordic summer, new potatoes and strawberries at Midsummer. 🦞 stands in for crayfish (there is no crayfish emoji) at the late-summer crayfish parties shared with Sweden and Swedish-speaking Finland, with 🍺 and songs. ☕ is fika, the coffee-and-pastry break.

Midsummer, winter and the Åland year in emoji

Midsummer is one of Åland's most celebrated holidays, and it has a custom of its own. Villages raise a tall midsommarstång, a midsummer pole dressed with leaves, flowers and wreaths and often topped with figures, ships and suns. On Åland the pole is left standing all year, until the next Midsummer. ☀️🌿💐🌼 is the Midsummer combo.

Winter brings ❄️ and, in cold years, skating ⛸️ on the frozen sea between the islands. 🎄🎅 and 🎆 for New Year follow the Nordic calendar. The rest of the year is outdoors: 🚲 cycling the quiet island roads, 🛶 kayaking between skerries, 🎣 fishing for pike and perch, 🧖 a sauna by the shore, 🍄🫐 mushroom and berry picking in late summer, and 🐑🐄 sheep and cattle grazing the shore meadows. 🦭 grey seals, 🦅 white-tailed eagles, 🦢 swans and 🦆 eiders are what visitors photograph, and ⚽ is IFK Mariehamn, the island club that won the Finnish football championship in 2016.

For places, 🏰 is Kastelholm Castle, a medieval stone castle in Sund, and ⛪ the islands' medieval stone churches, among the oldest in Finland. ✉️ is for Åland's own postage stamps, issued since 1984 and sought by collectors worldwide.

Åland Islands currency €, Swedish letters å ä ö and how to type them

The Åland Islands currency is the euro, as in the rest of Finland: € as a text sign, 💶 and 🪙 as emoji. In Swedish the sign usually follows the amount with a space and a decimal comma: 12,50 €. To type € on Windows hold Alt and type 0128 on the number pad (or AltGr + E on most European layouts); on a Mac with a US layout press Option + Shift + 2; in HTML write €.

Åland's official language is Swedish, and only Swedish: by law the islands are monolingual, unlike mainland Finland. By CLDR's estimate about 26,000 people speak it there, close to the whole population (Åland's own statistics now count a little over 30,000 residents). Swedish adds three letters to A–Z, in this order at the end of the alphabet: Å å, Ä ä, Ö ö. They are letters in their own right, not A or O with decoration, and they change words: Åland starts with å, and ö alone means island, so the archipelago is full of names ending in -ö. É é appears in a few loanwords such as idé and armé. The full Swedish alphabet is in our Swedish collection, and the mainland's letters and emoji in Finland Emoji & Symbols.

How to type å and the others: on Windows, Alt + 0197 Å, 0229 å, 0196 Ä, 0228 ä, 0214 Ö, 0246 ö, 0201 É, 0233 é; with the US-International layout, AltGr + W gives å. On a Mac, Option + A gives å (add Shift for Å), Option + U then the letter gives ä or ö, and Option + E then e gives é. On a phone, long-press A or O. In HTML: å, ä, ö, é.