Flag of Kosovo

The flag of the Republic of Kosovo was adopted by the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo immediately following the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo on 17 February 2008. The flag design emerged from an international competition, organized by an informal group from the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government known as the Kosovo Unity Team, which attracted almost one thousand entries. The winning design was proposed by Muhamer Ibrahimi. It shows six white stars in an arc above a golden map of Kosovo, all on a blue field. The stars symbolize Kosovo's six major ethnic groups: Albanians, Serbs, Bosniaks, Turks, Romani, and Gorani.

The flag of Kosovo has a blue background, charged with a map of Kosovo and six stars. The stars are officially meant to symbolize Kosovo's six major ethnic groups: Albanians, Serbs, Bosniaks, Turks, Romani (often grouped with the Ashkali and Egyptians) and Gorani. Unofficially, the stars are sometimes said to represent the six regions, which according to Albanian ultra-nationalist ideology, make up Greater Albania: Albania, Kosovo, western parts of North Macedonia, parts of northern Greece, parts of Montenegro and Preševo Valley in southern Serbia. The flag bears a similarity to the emblem adopted in 2003 for use by government institutions in Kosovo, which also depicted a golden map of Kosovo on a blue field surmounted by stars. The flag of Kosovo resembles that of Bosnia and Herzegovina in terms of colors and shapes used (white stars and yellow shape of the country on a blue field). The flag is unusual among national flags in using a map as a design element; the flag of Cyprus is the only other to do so. The ratio of the flag was announced during the contest as 2:3; with the passage of a diplomatic protocol law in Kosovo in April 2009, the ratio was set as 1:1.4 (5:7 when put in…