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Shetland Islands (United Kingdom)

Last modified: 2005-03-12 by rob raeside
Keywords: shetland islands | scotland | united kingdom | cross: scandinavian |
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[Flag of the Shetland Islands] by Marcus Schmöger, 15 August 2001

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Description of the flag

 In the Flag Bulletin (vol. 40) is an article about the flag of the Shetlands, written by the designer of the flag. To summarize, the author Roy Grönneberg founded the Shetland branch of the SNP (Scottish National Party) in 1966 and was active towards increased autonomy of the islands. In 1969 he designed (together with a fellow student, Bill Adams) the flag of Shetland, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the transfer of the Shetlands to Scotland (from the king of Norway and Denmark).

The idea of the design was as follows: "Wishing to give equal symbolic weight to the fact that Shetland had been part of Norway for 500 years and part of Scotland for 500 years, we took the national colours of Scotland - blue and white - and inserted them into the offset cross design common to all Scandinavian countries."

For public relations the "Shetland Flag Society" was formed, and first day covers as well as vignettes with the flag were printed. However these could not be posted at the Post Office in Lerwick, Shetland's capital; therefore much of the wanted publicity was lost. Inspiration for the design of the flag stemmed from the fact, that also the Faroese fla