Last modified: 2013-12-31 by ivan sache
Keywords: kosovo | kosova | map (yellow) | stars: 6 (white) | kosovo i metohija | error | albania | eagle: double-headed (black) | kosovo security force | ymca kosova |
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On 17 February 2008, the Parliament of Kosovo declared independance from Serbia. The independence was not recognized by Serbia, which still considers Kosovo as a part of its national territory.
As of 1 January 2014, 105 out of the 193 members of the United Nations have officially recognized Kosovo as an independent state, as follows (ranked by increasing date of recognition):
- 2008: Costa Rica, United States, France, Afghanistan, Albania, Turkey, United Kingdom, Australia, Senegal, Germany, Latvia, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Luxembourg, Peru, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Sweden, Netherlands, Iceland, Slovenia, Finland, Japan, Canada, Monaco, Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, South Korea, Norway, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Burkina Faso, Lithuania, San Marino, Czech Republic, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Belize, Malta, Samoa, Portugal, Montenegro, Macedonia, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Federated States of Micronesia;
- 2009: Panamá, Maldives, Palau, Gambia, Saudi Arabia, Comoros, Bahrain, Jordan, Dominican Republic, New Zealand and Malawi;
- 2010: Mauritania, Swaziland, Vanuatu, Djibouti, Somalia, Honduras, Kiribati and Tuvalu;
- 2011: Qatar, Guinea Bissau, Oman, Andorra, Central African Republic, Niger, Guinea, Benin, Saint Lucia, Nigeria, Gabon, Côte-d'Ivoire and Kuwait;
- 2012: Ghana, Haiti, Uganda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Brunei, Chad, Papua New Guinea, Burundi, Timor-Leste, Fiji, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominca and Pakistan;
- 2013: Yemen, Guyana, Egypt, Thailand, Grenada, Libya and El Salvador.
The recognition texts are available on the KosovaThanksYou website.
Jan Mertens & Ivan Sache, 1 January 2012
![[Flag of Kosovo]](../images/r/rs-kosov.gif)
![[Arms of Kosovo]](../images/r/rs)kosov.gif)
Flag and arms of Kosovo, February 2008 - Images by Željko Heimer, 17 February 2008
Symbols for the new country were adopted by the Parliament of Kosovo on 17 February 2008. The flag of Kosovo is blue with a yellow geographical map of Kosovo and six white five-pointed stars forming an arch above it. The coat of arms follows the same pattern on a yellow-bordered shield.
Željko Heimer, 17 February 2008
Quoting Kosovapress, 23 February 2008:
Designer of Kosova's flag and emblem, Muhamer Ibrahimi on Saturday gave away the first copy of the designed flag of the Republic of Kosova to the Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi, congratulating him and the Kosovar government of the new independent state.
Željko Heimer, 24 February 2008
According to Hürriyet, 18 February 2008, "the new flag of Kosovo was made in Turkey, and brought to Kosovo yesterday by Turkish Airlines."
Jan Oskar Engene, 27 April 2008
The KosovaThanksYou website, 26 January 2009, gives the colour specifications of the flag and arms as follows:
In the past few months there has been some confusion about the exact colors of the Kosovar flag. Confusion stems from conversion between CMYK and RGB color formats, which was not done properly.
The colors on the Government Website are in CMYK format that have been converted to RGB without corrections. This makes the Kosova outline look darker on the screen. The correct RGB version of the flag as well as the color values are listed below.
At this point, this specification remains the only Kosovo flag color standard publicly available.Republic of Kosovo flag color codes:
- Background [field]: R:24, G:56, B:132 (or #183884)
- Kosova [map]: R:219, G:187, B:91 (or #DBBB5B)
- Stars: R: 255, G: 255, B: 255 (or #FFFFFF)
Evan, 9 February 2009
Kosavapress interviewed Muhamer Ibrahimi, the winner of
the symbols contest, explaining the meaning of the symbols he
proposed (text in Albanian and Serbian).
Translation from the Serbian version:
[...]
Ibrahimi highlighted that the idea to design and propose it came even before the contest was issued by the Unity Team*.
"I started to work before the contest that prescribed certain criteria and based on these criteria I was working on the flag and the coat of arms", said Ibrahimi.
"The blue colour in the flag of the state of Kosovo represents the goals of the people of Kosovoa for the Euro-Atlantic** integration. The golden yellow colours, in fact the map on blue field, represents Kovoso as a rich and peaceful country, while the white star above the map represent the communities living in Kosovo. There are larger and smaller communities, but they are all equal in the new state of Kosovo", said Ibrahimi.
*The Kosovo Unity Team is a working group of the Kosovo Assembly that formally issued the contest.
** Euro-Atlantic institutions is the term used in political speech of
this wider region to encompass all various Eruopean institutions and
institutions like NATO encompassing the USA and Canada as well.
The six communities are, I presume, those listed on the website of the Kosovo Assembly, that is, beside Albanians, five other communities with guaranteed representation in the Assembly: Serb, RAE (Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian), Bosniak, Turkish and Goran [Macedonian] communities.
Željko Heimer, 19 February 2008
In The Sofia Echo, 20 February 2009, Magdalena Rahn reports the celebration of the 1st birthday of Kosovo (17 February 2009). The article contains a weird report of the flag used during the celebration:
[...] the red of the Albanian flag - adopted by Kosovo as its national banner - and the blue of the Pristina region's flag [...]
[...]
Street vendors [...] were selling, apart from the requisite American, Pristina region and Kosovar flags [...]
[...]
[...] one whole bridge is red with the double-headed eagle standard of Albania - and, now, Kosovo.
When it became its own country, there were reportedly 500 proposals for a national flag; the only one that won approval in parliament was the emblem that became the flag of the Pristina region - Kosovo's current national flag is the same as Albania's because that was the only design that received sufficient consensus.
[...]
The following correction was added at the end of the article:
Correction (February 20 2009): The national flag of Kosovo is the blue flag with six stars; there were 933 design submissions received. The Sofia Echo is still unclear as to why it was told that the red Albanian flag had been adopted by Kosovo as its national flag, and apologises for the error.
Ivan Sache, 25 February 2009
![[KSF flag]](../images/r/rs^ksf.gif)
![[KSF flag]](../images/r/rs^ksf09.gif)
Flag of KSF, current and former versions - Images by Zoltán Horváth, 26 January 2011
After unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, the UÇK was dissolved,
and a new paramilitary force has been established.
The Kosovo Security Force (KSF; in Albanian, Forca e Sigurisë së Kosovës, FSK; official website) is a new, professional, multi-ethnic, lightly armed and uniformed Security Force that is subject to democratic, civilian control. The mission of the KSF is to conduct crisis response operations in Kosovo and abroad; civil protection operations within Kosovo; and to assist the civil authorities in responding to natural disasters and other emergencies. Such duties will include search and rescue operations; explosive ordnance disposal; the control and clearance of hazardous materials; fire-fighting; and other humanitarian assistance tasks.
The first flag of KSF (photo) is based on the emblem of KSF, a dark blue and yellow shield with a rampant lion and a six-pointed star.
Sometime in mid of 2009, a new flag (photo, photo) started to be used. The flag has a camouflage-like blue background, formed of six-pointed stars (photo). The KSF shield is placed in the center of the flag. The proportions of both flags are 2:3.
Zoltán Horváth, 21 January 2011
![[YMCA Kosova flag]](../images/r/rs-ks}ym.gif)
Flag of YMCA Kosova - Images by Ivan Sache, 1 February 2010
YMCA Kosova, founded in 2002 by Murat Bajrami and a few local volunteers, was officially registered as its youngest member by the European Alliance of YMCAs on 14 June 2003.
The flag of YMCA Kosova, as seen on a photo shown on the webpage of
the Priština branch of the movement, is a square white flag with the
logo of YMCA Kosova in the middle.
The logo of YMCA Kosova is derived from the "generic" YMCA logo, a
letter "Y" formed by a black branch and a red voided triangle. The
organization's motto is added in white letters on the triangle, as
"SPIRIT" (top), "MIND" (left), "BODY" (right). "KOSOVO" in blue
letters is added inside the red triangle.
Ivan Sache, 1 February 2010
![[Albania-Kosovo flag]](../images/r/rs-ks@al.gif)
Albania+Kosovo flag - Images by Ivan Sache, Carlos Esparza & Željko Heimer, 30 December 2009
Last night there was a football match between Sweden and Albania in Sweden, as part of the qualification to the World Cup.
Among the Albanian fans, there were also a lot of Kosovo flags and one flag in particular caught my eye: it was 1:2 with the Albanian eagle in the red, hoist part and the map and stars from the Kosovo flag in the blue, fly part.
Elias Granqvist, 15 October 2009
