Seychelles Emoji & Symbols

The Seychelles flag emoji 🇸🇨 is not one picture in Unicode. It is two regional indicator letters, S and C (the country's ISO code), which phones and apps draw together as the flag; most country flags, this one among them, became usable emoji in 2015. On a system without flag pictures, such as Windows' own emoji font, you see the letters SC instead, but the text is the same, so your friends' phones still show the flag.

The flag was adopted in 1996. Its five bands fan out from the lower corner at the hoist, which is meant to show a young country moving into the future. The official reading: blue for the sky and the sea around the islands, yellow for the sun that gives light and life, red for the people and their will to work together in unity and love, white for social justice and harmony, and green for the land and its natural environment. There is no slanted-band emoji, so people paste the colours as hearts 💙💛❤️🤍💚 beside 🇸🇨.

It is the third flag since independence. The first, from 1976, had blue and red triangles divided by a white diagonal cross; the second, used from 1977 to 1996, was red over green with a wavy white line between them. That is why searches for the "old" Seychelles flag and the 1977 flag turn up such different pictures.

Seychelles national symbols: coco de mer, black parrot and giant tortoise

🥥🌴 The coco de mer is the emblem of the country: a palm whose double nut is the heaviest seed of any plant. It grows wild only on Praslin and the neighbouring island of Curieuse, and its forest, the Vallée de Mai on Praslin, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The nut's curved shape has made it a source of jokes and legends for centuries. There is no coco de mer emoji, so 🥥 stands in for it.

🦜 The Seychelles black parrot, which lives in the same palm forest of Praslin, is the national bird. 🐦 is for the white-tailed tropicbird, the payanke in Creole, which crowns the coat of arms, and 🐢 for the Aldabra giant tortoise that stands on the shield. Aldabra, a huge coral atoll far to the south-west, holds the world's largest population of giant tortoises and is the country's second World Heritage Site. Two sailfish 🐟 hold up the shield, and the motto beneath it is Finis Coronat Opus, "the end crowns the work". The national anthem is Koste Seselwa, "Come together, Seychellois".

Island emoji: granite beaches, La Digue and the reefs

Seychelles is 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean 🌍. The inner islands, Mahé, Praslin and La Digue among them, are granite 🪨⛰️: pieces of the old supercontinent of Gondwana left in mid-ocean, which is why the beaches are framed by huge rounded grey and pink boulders. The outer islands are low coral atolls. 🏝️🏖️☀️🌊🌅 are popular Seychelles emoji to paste beside the flag, and 🏝️🪨 is the caption for Anse Source d'Argent on La Digue or Anse Lazio on Praslin.

On La Digue most people get around by bicycle 🚲, and for a long time by ox cart 🐂 too. Mahé, the main island, has the capital Victoria, the airport ✈️ and the blue buses 🚌; small planes 🛩️ and ferries ⛴️ link the islands. Under water come 🐠 reef fish, 🪸 coral, 🐬 dolphins, 🐢 hawksbill and green turtles that nest on the beaches, and 🦈 whale sharks, which divers 🤿 meet off Mahé. On land, 🦇 is the big Seychelles fruit bat you see flying over the hills at dusk, and 🦎 the bright green day geckos.

Seychelles Creole food emoji: curry, fish and Takamaka rum

Seychellois Creole food is fish 🐟, rice 🍚 and curry 🍛, cooked with coconut milk 🥥, chilli 🌶️, garlic 🧄, ginger 🫚 and lime 🍋‍🟩. Kari zourit is octopus curry 🐙; kari koko a mild coconut curry of fish or chicken; satini reken, shark chutney 🦈, is mashed shark fried with onion and bilimbi. Red snapper (bourzwa) is grilled whole 🔥🐟, and kari sousouri, fruit bat curry 🦇, is a dish many visitors only dare once. 🦞🦀🦐🦑 are the rest of the catch.

Ladob is the classic dessert: ripe plantain 🍌 or breadfruit simmered in coconut milk with nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla, the last two once grown for export. 🥭 mangoes grow everywhere. To drink: 🍺 SeyBrew, the local beer; 🥃 Takamaka rum, made on Mahé; 🍹 cocktails at the beach; and 🍵 tea from the plantation in Mahé's hills. In the villages you may still find kalou, palm toddy, and baka, made from sugar cane.

Independence Day, Festival Kreol and moutya

Seychelles became independent from Britain on 29 June 1976, and Independence Day brings 🇸🇨🎆🎇🎉. Festival Kreol, held every October since the 1980s, celebrates the Creole language, music, food and dress with concerts and parades across Mahé. Most Seychellois are Roman Catholic ⛪✝️, so Christmas, Easter, All Saints' Day 🕯️ and the Assumption on 15 August, the great feast day of La Digue, are public holidays; 🛕 and 🕌 are for the Hindu and Muslim communities of Victoria.

One of the oldest music traditions of the islands is moutya 🥁🔥💃🕺: dancers circle while singers improvise to big goatskin drums that are warmed by a fire to tighten their skins. It came from the people enslaved on the plantations, was long frowned upon, and in 2021 was added to UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage. Sega 🎶 and kanmtole, a country dance with violin and accordion, are heard at weddings and parties.

Seychelles is also one of the world's honeymoon places, so 💍💑🥂🏝️ is a very common combo. And there is a pirate legend 🏴‍☠️🪎🗺️: treasure hunters have dug for decades at Bel Ombre on Mahé for the gold said to have been hidden by the pirate Olivier Levasseur, called La Buse.

Seychelles rupee symbol ₨, Creole and French letters

The currency is the Seychellois rupee (code SCR), divided into 100 cents. Shops and banks write it SR or SCR before the amount (SR 150); the Unicode rupee sign ₨ (U+20A8) is the general rupee symbol and works too, the same sign used for the rupees of Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. To type ₨, copy it from here or write ₨ in HTML. 🪙💰 are the money emoji.

Seychelles has three national languages. Seychellois Creole, Kreol Seselwa, is the language almost everyone speaks at home; it grew from French and has its own spelling, written phonetically with plain letters: Bonzour (hello), Mersi (thank you), Mon kontan ou (I love you). English is the main language of government and school, and French is used in church, the press and daily life, so the French letters à â ç é è ê ë î ï ô œ ù û and the guillemets « » are the ones you need beyond A–Z. On Windows hold Alt and type 0233 on the number pad for é, 0232 for è, 0224 for à and 0231 for ç; on a Mac press Option + E then the letter for é, Option + ` for è and Option + C for ç; on a phone, hold the plain letter. Full details are in the French and English collections, and the neighbours Mauritius, Réunion, Madagascar, Comoros, Maldives and the British Indian Ocean Territory have their own pages.