flag: Estonia

It is Estonia's national flag, the blue-black-white tricolour.

Estonia is a small Baltic country on the Gulf of Finland, with Tallinn as its capital and a language closely related to Finnish rather than to Russian or Latvian. Its flag is unusual among European tricolours because of the black middle stripe: no other national flag runs blue, black, white from top to bottom. Estonians call it the sinimustvalge, literally "blue-black-white", and that colour word is almost a nickname for the country itself.

In messages and on social media the emoji does the ordinary flag jobs: it sits in profiles next to a hometown, tags holiday photos of Tallinn's medieval old town or snowy forests, and cheers on Estonian skiers, wrestlers, basketball players and Eurovision acts. Around 24 February, Estonia's Independence Day, feeds fill with 🇪🇪 from Estonians at home and abroad. Its tone is plain and friendly; the words around it decide whether it is a travel note or a burst of pride.

What do the blue, black and white stripes mean?

Sky and sea, dark soil and hardship, snow and the hope of freedom.

The usual reading, taught in Estonian schools, is that blue stands for the sky, the sea and the country's many lakes, as well as loyalty; black for the dark soil, the traditional black peasant coat and the suffering of past centuries; and white for snow, light and the striving for happiness and freedom. The colours were chosen in 1881 by an Estonian students' society at the University of Tartu, and the first flag was sewn and blessed in the town of Otepää on 4 June 1884, a date still kept as Flag Day.

The flag became the national flag when Estonia declared independence in 1918. Under Soviet occupation from 1940 it was banned and could cost people their freedom to display. It returned to the Pikk Hermann tower in Tallinn in February 1989, before independence was restored in 1991, which is why the flag carries a strong note of defiance and recovered freedom for Estonians, well beyond simple national pride. It still flies on Pikk Hermann every day, raised at sunrise to the national anthem.

What does it mean when someone sends you 🇪🇪?

They are pointing at Estonia: their roots, a trip, a team or a holiday.

Alone or next to a name it usually means "I am Estonian" or "I live there". With dates or travel plans it means a visit, often a Tallinn weekend by ferry from Helsinki. During the Olympics, world championships or Eurovision it is a cheer for an Estonian competitor. On 24 February it is a holiday greeting. If none of those fit, the sender may be marking a language or product as Estonian, the way shops and apps use flags for language menus.