Tuvalu Emoji & Symbols

The Tuvalu flag emoji 🇹🇻 is not a single picture in Unicode. It is two regional indicator letters, T and V (the country's ISO code), which phones and apps draw together as the flag; most country flags, this one among them, became emoji in 2015. On a system without flag support, such as Windows' own emoji font, you see the letters TV instead, but the text underneath is the same, so it still shows as a flag on the reader's phone.

The flag is a light blue field with the Union Jack 🇬🇧 in the upper corner and nine yellow stars ⭐ in the fly, placed like a map of the nine islands as they lie in the ocean. That is why people write it as 🩵💛 when they want the flag as hearts. From 1995 to 1997 a new design without the Union Jack flew instead, until the old flag was brought back. The country's motto, also the name of its national anthem, is Tuvalu mo te Atua, "Tuvalu for the Almighty", so ✝️🙏 sit naturally beside 🇹🇻.

Tuvalu symbols: nine islands, the maneapa and the crown

Tuvalu means "eight standing together", for the eight islands that were traditionally inhabited; the ninth, little Niulakita, was settled only in the twentieth century, and the flag counts all nine. From north to south they are Nanumea, Niutao, Nanumaga, Nui, Vaitupu, Nukufetau, Funafuti, Nukulaelae and Niulakita: coral atolls and reef islands 🏝️🌴🥥, about 26 km² of land in all, the fourth-smallest country in the world by area after Vatican City, Monaco and Nauru. CLDR estimates put the population at around 11,700, and more than half of it lives on Funafuti, the capital.

The heart of every island is the maneapa 🛖, the open-sided meeting house where the falekaupule, the council of elders, meets and where feasts, dances and church gatherings happen; a maneapa is also the picture in the middle of Tuvalu's coat of arms. Tuvalu is a constitutional monarchy in the Commonwealth with the British monarch as head of state 👑, represented by a governor-general, and nearly everyone is Christian, most of them members of the Church of Tuvalu ⛪. Gospel Day in May remembers the arrival of Christianity in the islands in the 1860s.

Rising seas 🌊, the speech in the sea and a digital nation 💻

Most of Tuvalu lies less than 3 m above the sea, and the islands are among the places most exposed to rising sea levels 🌊🌡️. At the highest spring tides, the king tides, seawater bubbles up through the coral ground of Funafuti and floods gardens and roads, and salt creeping into the soil spoils the pits where pulaka, the giant swamp taro, is grown. In November 2021, foreign minister Simon Kofe gave Tuvalu's message to the COP26 climate conference standing at a lectern knee-deep in the sea, in a suit, and the picture went around the world.

Tuvalu's answers are just as concrete. Land has been reclaimed on Funafuti to raise a safer strip above the sea, the Falepili Union treaty of 2023 with Australia 🇦🇺🤝🇹🇻 opened a path for Tuvaluans to live and work there, and the government has set out to become the first digital nation 💻, keeping its land, culture and records alive online whatever happens to the islands. That is why climate posts pair 🇹🇻 with 🌊🌡️, and why Tuvaluans answer the question people google, "does Tuvalu still exist", with a firm yes.

Fatele, feasts and Tuvalu Day 🎉

The fatele is Tuvalu's own dance and song. A group sits on the mats of the maneapa around a wooden box that is beaten as a drum 🥁, singing the same verse again and again, each time louder and faster 🎶, while the dancers stand in front 💃🕺 and the audience joins in and claps 👏. Dancers and guests wear garlands and head wreaths of flowers 🌺🌼, so those two are the emoji of any Tuvaluan celebration.

A feast means fish 🐟, coconut 🥥, pork 🐖 and pulaka, for which Unicode has no emoji, so 🍠 stands in; rice 🍚 is now an everyday food, and kaleve, the sweet sap tapped from the coconut palm, makes a drink and a syrup. The national holiday is Tuvalu Day, 1 October, which marks independence from Britain in 1978 (the Ellice Islands, as they were called, had split from the Gilbert Islands, now Kiribati 🇰🇮, three years earlier). It brings parades, fatele, sports between the islands and feasts, and feeds fill with 🇹🇻🎉 and 🇹🇻🎆.

Football on the runway, canoes and .tv 📺

Funafuti's airstrip runs down the narrow islet of Fongafale and is a long, open stretch of flat ground on the atoll. Planes ✈️ from Fiji 🇫🇯 land only a few times a week, and in between, especially in the cool of the evening, the runway is the island's playground: football ⚽, volleyball 🏐, the traditional ball game te ano, people sitting and talking, children on bikes. Tuvalu is not a FIFA member, but its teams play at the Pacific Games, and since 2008 it has sent athletes, weightlifters 🏋️ among them, to the Olympics. On the lagoon you see outrigger canoes 🛶, fishing 🎣 is daily work, and government ships 🛳️ carry people and cargo to the outer islands.

Tuvalu's internet country code is .tv 📺🌐, and because it reads like "television", the country leases it to companies; it is behind the addresses of streaming sites such as Twitch, and the income is one of the biggest lines in the national budget. Tuvalu also issues postage stamps that collectors around the world buy.

Tuvaluan words and the Australian dollar $

Tuvalu's languages are Tuvaluan, a Polynesian language close to Samoan and Tokelauan (see our Samoan collection), and English, used in government and school (see our English collection); on the island of Nui people speak a form of Gilbertese, the language of Kiribati. Tuvaluan is written with plain letters, so you need no special characters to write it; g is said like the ng in "singer". Everyday words: Talofa (hello), Fakafetai (thank you), Tofa (goodbye).

The money is the Australian dollar: $ and ¢, 💵 and 🪙. Tuvalu also mints its own Tuvaluan dollar coins, worth the same and used side by side with Australian ones. For the countries around it, see our Kiribati, Fiji, Samoa, Tokelau, Australia and New Zealand collections.