page_title: Flag of Ukraine
section_title: Return of the national flag
hierarchical_section_title: Flag of Ukraine / History / Return of the national flag
caption_attribution_description: At vyshyvanka parade
context_page_description: The flag of Ukraine is a banner of two equally sized horizontal bands of blue and yellow. The top represents sky and the yellow represents wheat. The combination of blue and yellow as a symbol of Ukrainian lands comes from the flag of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia used in the 12th century. As a national flag, the blue and yellow bicolour has been officially used since the 1848 Spring of Nations, when it was hoisted over the Lviv Rathaus. It was officially adopted as a state flag for the first time in 1918 by the short-lived West Ukrainian People's Republic and subsequently used by the Ukrainian People's Republic. When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, the flag was outlawed and, before 1949, there was no official state flag until adoption of the red-azure flag of the Ukrainian SSR. The blue and yellow flag was provisionally adopted for official ceremonies in September 1991 following Ukrainian independence, before finally officially being restored on 28 January 1992 by the parliament of Ukraine.
  Ukraine has celebrated Flag Day each year on 23 August since 2005.
context_section_description: Under the influence of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost years, the individual Soviet republics had strengthened their sense of national identity, which led to the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. This concerned the three Baltic states and Western Ukraine, which were the last territories annexed into Soviet Union. These efforts were accompanied with attempts to restore the respective historical national symbols. In 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR re-established Lithuania's historic coat of arms as the state symbol. The Parliaments of Latvia and Estonia soon followed.
  The events in the Baltic countries soon led to similar processes in Ukraine. Particularly, West Ukraine and Ukrainian SSR's capital Kiev (Kyiv) constantly held political demonstrations with the national yellow-and-blue flags waving above the heads of demonstrators.
  On 14 March 1990, the Ukrainian flag was raised for the first time after the establishment of the Soviet Union in the small city of Stryi.
  On 20 March 1990, the town council of Ternopil voted upon the usage and re-establishment of the yellow-and-blue flag and the tryzub as well as the national anthem Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy. On the same day, the yellow-and-blue national flag was flown for the first time in about 80 years on a governmental building in Kiev, replacing the then official red-azure flag of the Ukrainian SSR.
  On 28 April 1990, the oblast council (oblasna rada) of Lviv also allowed the use of the national symbols of Ukraine within the Oblast.
  On 29 April 1990, the yellow-and-blue flag was flown from the Ternopil city theater's flagstaff without the official flag of the Soviet Union hanging above it.
  After 24 July 1990, the yellow-and-blue flag was flown for the first time over an official governmental building of the Kiev City Council on the Maidan Nezalezhnosti square of the Khreschatyk street.
  After the declaration of independence of Ukraine on 24 August 1991, the national yellow-and-blue flag flew for the first time over the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) building on 4 September 1991.
caption: A girl with the Ukrainian flag at a vyshyvanka parade
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