Niue Emoji & Symbols

The Niue flag emoji 🇳🇺 is not a single picture in Unicode. It is two regional indicator letters, N and U (Niue's ISO country code), which phones and apps draw together as the flag. Like most country flags it became usable as an emoji in 2015. Where a system has no flag images, as with Windows' own emoji font, you see the letters NU instead; the text underneath is the same, so it still shows as a flag on the reader's phone.

Niue's flag, adopted in 1975, is the only national flag with a golden yellow field and a Union Jack 🇬🇧 in the corner. The yellow is officially explained as the bright sunshine of Niue and the warm feelings of Niueans toward New Zealand and its people. On the Union Jack sit five yellow stars ⭐: four small ones on the arms of the cross, recalling the Southern Cross on New Zealand's flag 🇳🇿, and a larger one on a blue disc in the middle for Niue itself in the blue Pacific. That is why people write the flag as 💛⭐ or 🇳🇺💛 when they want its colours.

Niue symbols: the Rock, its chasms, whales and the katuali

Niue is one of the largest raised coral islands in the world, a single block of limestone lifted out of the sea, which is why it is called the Rock of Polynesia and Niueans call it simply the Rock 🪨. There are no rivers and few sandy beaches. Instead, cliffs drop into very clear water 🌊, and steep sea tracks lead down to caves, arches and chasms such as Togo, Matapa and the Talava arches, and to reef pools like Limu where people swim and snorkel 🏊🤿. Sunsets 🌅 over Alofi, the capital on the west coast, are the island's evening ritual. 🌀 is a serious emoji here: Cyclone Heta in January 2004 drove waves up the cliffs and destroyed much of Alofi, including the hospital and the museum.

From about July to October, humpback whales 🐋🐳 come close to the reef to calve and rest, and Niue is one of the few places where visitors may swim with them under licence; spinner dolphins 🐬 play in the bays all year. 🐍 on a Niuean feed is usually the katuali, a banded sea krait found only in Niue's waters 🤿🪸. 🦀 is the uga, the giant coconut crab 🦀🥥, a prized delicacy now protected by minimum-size and export restrictions. 🦇 is the peka, the flying fox of the forest, and 🐝🍯 stands for Niue honey, one of the island's few exports alongside vanilla.

Dark Sky Nation: Niue night sky emoji 🌌🌠🔭

In 2020 Niue became the first whole country to be recognised as an International Dark Sky Place, a Dark Sky Nation: outdoor lighting across the island is kept low and shielded so that the Milky Way 🌌 stands over the Rock every clear night. Local guides lead stargazing tours 🔭, and 🌌🌠🇳🇺 is the combo travellers post from them.

Niue keeps time at UTC−11, so it is among the last inhabited places on Earth to finish each day, a whole calendar day behind its neighbour Tonga 🇹🇴 even though Tonga is only a short flight away.

Niuean life: umu feasts, canoe fishing, ceremonies and church

Fishing from small outrigger canoes 🛶🎣 off the reef is still part of village life, and much of Niue's food comes out of the umu, the earth oven of hot stones 🔥. Unicode has no taro, the island's staple, so 🍠 has to stand in for it and for takihi, the baked dish of taro and pawpaw layered with coconut cream; 🍌 and 🥥 cover the rest of the garden, and 🐖 is the pig often found at the centre of a big feast.

Two family ceremonies are the high points of a Niuean childhood. In the hifiulu, the hair-cutting ceremony, a boy's long hair, grown since he was small, is cut lock by lock by relatives and guests 💇✂️; in the huki teliga a girl's ears are pierced 👂. Guests bring gifts 🎁 and money 💵, and a feast follows. Niuean women are skilled at weaving pandanus into fine baskets 🧺 and hats 👒, and 💃🕺🥁🎶 cover dancing and song, including the takalo, the Niuean war dance. ⛪✝️🙏📖 are everyday emoji: most Niueans belong to the Ekalesia Kerisiano Niue, and Sunday is a day for church and rest.

Constitution Day, sport and Niue emoji combos

Niue became a British protectorate in 1900 and was placed under New Zealand in 1901. On 19 October 1974 it became self-governing in free association with New Zealand, which is why Niueans are New Zealand citizens and why Constitution Day, 19 October, is a major celebration on the island's calendar, with village displays, sport, food and dancing: 🇳🇺🎉📜. Rugby 🏉 and cricket 🏏 are widely played, and so is netball, which has no emoji.

Far more Niueans live in New Zealand than on the island, around 35,000 against about 1,700 at home in recent census counts, most of them in Auckland, so 🇳🇺🇳🇿 is one of the commonest combos of all, and flights from Auckland ✈️ are how families go home. Niue's neighbours have their own collections: see Cook Islands Emoji & Symbols 🇨🇰, Tonga 🇹🇴, Samoa 🇼🇸 and New Zealand 🇳🇿.

Niue currency symbol $, the famous coins, and Niuean letters ā ē ī ō ū

Niue's currency is the New Zealand dollar, written with the ordinary dollar sign $ (or NZ$ when it needs telling apart) and cents ¢; 💵 and 🪙 are its emoji. Niue also issues its own legal-tender coins, but these are collector pieces struck abroad, and they are the reason "Niue coins" is such a common search: there are Niue dollar coins with Star Wars, Pokémon and Disney designs, sold to collectors worldwide rather than spent in Alofi's shops.

Niuean (vagahau Niuē) is a Polynesian language closest to Tongan, and it is official on the island alongside English; CLDR counts about 1,100 English speakers in Niue, but most islanders also speak Niuean, which UNESCO lists as endangered. Its alphabet uses plain Latin letters, and g is said like the ng in sing, so tagata (people) sounds like "tangata". Long vowels can be marked with a macron: ā ē ī ō ū, as in the island's own name Niuē. To type them, long-press the vowel on a phone; on a Mac use the ABC Extended input and press Option+A then the vowel; on Windows add the Māori keyboard and press the tilde key then the vowel, or in Word type the code (0101 for ā) and press Alt+X. In HTML they are ā ē ī ō ū.