🇬🇧 The colours of the United Kingdom
8 meanings recorded, 19 colours tied to the country and 4 colour cities.
The United Kingdom's flag, known as the Union Jack, combines red, white, and blue. Each colour and shape represents England, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. The red and white crosses stand for England and Ireland, while the blue background and white saltire represent Scotland. Wales is not symbolised in the flag.
Where no official value is given, the swatch shows the colour family, not the exact shade.
- The Union Jack overlays three different crosses.
- Wales is not represented in the flag.
- The flag's current design dates from 1801.
- Red, white, and blue each stand for a different UK country.
- The flag is usually twice as long as it is tall.
The colours of the flag of the United Kingdom
The Union Jack is made up of three main colours: red, white, and blue. The red cross edged in white stands for England, while the white saltire on a blue background represents Scotland. The red saltire, also edged in white, symbolises Northern Ireland. These elements are layered to form a single flag, but Wales is not included because it was part of England when the original design was created. The meanings of the colours and shapes are official, as each cross is tied to a patron saint and a country.
How the colours were chosen of the United Kingdom
The flag's origins go back to 1606, when England and Scotland were first united under one monarch. The design was updated in 1801 to include the red saltire for Ireland after the Act of Union. The flag did not change after most of Ireland left the United Kingdom in 1922. Wales is not represented because it was considered part of England at the time the flag was first made.
Official shades and rules of the United Kingdom
The flag's design is precisely specified. The red cross of St George is one fifth the height of the flag, with a white border one fifteenth of the height. The white saltire of St Andrew and the red saltire of St Patrick have set widths and are offset. The flag is usually twice as long as it is tall (1:2 ratio), but 3:5 is also official.
The facts in this overview come from the Wikipedia article "Union Jack", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Rang rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
What colours mean in the United Kingdom
Customs vary by region, faith and family; these are the meanings most often recorded.
Each November people pin on a red paper poppy to remember those killed in war. The flower grew on the battlefields of Flanders in the First World War.
Protection and healingDanger and warningNostalgiaSource: Remembrance poppyRed is the colour of the Labour Party, whose symbol is a red rose, and blue the colour of the Conservatives. Election maps are drawn in the two.
Politics and protestSource: Political colourPost boxes, telephone kiosks and London buses share a bright red. Post boxes were painted green at first and changed to red from 1874 so that they were easier to find.
Protection and healingPrideSource: Pillar boxBritish racing green is the dark green of British motor racing cars. It dates from the early 1900s, when each country's cars raced in a national colour.
Festival and celebrationPrideSource: British racing greenAt Oxford and Cambridge a blue is the award given to those who represent the university in sport. Oxford's is dark blue and Cambridge's light blue, as worn in the Boat Race.
Festival and celebrationPrideSource: Blue (university sport)Suffragettes campaigning for women's votes wore purple, white and green: purple for dignity, white for purity and green for hope.
Politics and protestCourageSource: SuffragetteQueen Victoria married in white silk and lace in 1840. Prints of the dress spread widely, and white became the usual colour for brides across the West.
Weddings and marriagePurity and peaceJoySource: White weddingAfter Prince Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria wore black for the rest of her life. Victorian widows were expected to wear full black for at least a year.
Mourning and deathGriefSource: MourningColour and feeling in the United Kingdom
Red roses and red hearts became the standard Valentine's Day gift in the nineteenth century, helped by cheap printed cards.
The football red card was devised by English referee Ken Aston and first used at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.
Queen Victoria wore black from Prince Albert's death in 1861 until her own in 1901, and set the pattern for strict mourning dress in black.
Shakespeare wrote of 'green-eyed jealousy' in The Merchant of Venice and the 'green-eyed monster' in Othello, and the image has stayed in English.
A loyal person is 'true blue', and a bride traditionally wears 'something blue' as a sign of faithfulness.
During the First World War, women handed white feathers to men out of uniform as an accusation of cowardice.
Charles Darwin argued in 1872 that blushing is the most human of expressions and that people of every skin colour blush when ashamed.
Britain, France, Ireland and New Zealand followed Australia in requiring cigarette packs in the same drab brown.
Unexpected news comes 'out of the blue' or as 'a bolt from the blue', the blue being a clear sky from which lightning should not fall.
'Blue Monday', a day in January promoted since 2005 as the gloomiest of the year, began as a travel company's press release.
Colour cities of the United Kingdom
🇬🇧 The painted harbour of MullTobermoryA curve of red, yellow, blue and pink buildings along the harbour of a small Scottish island town.
🇬🇧 A pastel Italian fantasy in WalesPortmeirionA holiday village built by one architect over fifty years, in the colours of the Italian Riviera.
🇬🇧 Coloured terraces and Bristol blueBristolHillside terraces painted in a row of different colours, street art, and a deep blue glass named after the city.
🇬🇧 London's pastel terracesNotting HillVictorian terraces painted pink, blue, yellow and lilac, and a summer carnival of feathers and sequins.Colours tied to the United Kingdom
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Green
The colour between cyan and yellow, seen widely in plants and natureBasic colour · 🇮🇪 Ireland +1
#800080
Purple
A cool colour between red and blue, long linked with royalty and rarityBasic colour · 🇱🇧 Lebanon +5
White
Zinc oxide
A white inorganic powder used in pigments, ointments, ceramics and electronicsPigment · 🇮🇳 India +2
Blue
Woad
A blue dye once vital to Europe's textile trade, made from the leaves of a flowering plantDye · 🇫🇷 France +3
#E25822
Scarlet
A bright red with a touch of orange, long tied to power, sacrifice and sinNamed shade · 🇹🇷 Turkey +4
Red
Sindoorसिन्दूर
A red or orange-red powder marking marriage for Hindu women in South AsiaTraditional colour · 🇮🇳 India +4
Green
Malachite green
A synthetic green dye once common for silk, now controversial in aquacultureDye · 🇨🇳 China +3
#007BA7
Cerulean
A blue-green colour once made from cobalt stannate and linked with the skyNamed shade · 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
#FFD800
School bus yellow
A yellow made for North American school buses to stand out and be seenNamed shade · 🇺🇸 United States +2
#FA5053
Strawberry
A bright red colour inspired by the ripe strawberry fruitNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +4
#009C8C
Blue-green
The colour between blue and green, part of the cyan familyNamed shade · 🇦🇺 Australia +3
#5D8AA8
Air Force blue
A medium blue-green shade linked to air force uniforms and flagsNamed shade · 🇬🇧 United Kingdom +3
White
Sabino
A horse coat pattern with irregular white markings and roaningNamed shade · 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
White
Anti-flash white
A special white paint used on nuclear bombers to reflect heat from nuclear blastsNamed shade · 🇬🇧 United Kingdom +4
Black
Super black
A surface treatment that absorbs nearly all visible lightStandard colour · 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Red
Erythrosine
A bright red-pink synthetic dye used in food, cosmetics, and industryDye · 🇺🇸 United States +4
Red
Amaranth
A synthetic red azo dye once used in foods and cosmeticsDye · 🇺🇸 United States +1
Blue
Bluing
A blue dye added to laundry to make white fabrics look brighterTraditional colour · 🇬🇧 United Kingdom +5
Red
Red红 / 紅 (hóng), Красный (Krasny)
A colour linked with luck, love, courage and ceremony in cultures worldwideBasic colour · 🇨🇳 China +5
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Strawberry: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 2.0, source
- Woad: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Air Force blue: Mick, CC BY 2.0, source
- Zinc oxide: Andrew Silver, USGS, Public domain, source
- Amaranth: Mrgreen71, Public domain, source
- Sabino: Heather Moreton, CC BY 2.0, source
- Anti-flash white: Alex Beltyukov, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Sindoor: Masum-al-hasan, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Scarlet: Daderot, Public domain, source
- Green: Myrabella, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- School bus yellow: BMRR ( talk ), CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Blue-green: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, source
- Cerulean: Stephhzz, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Purple: Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Red: Politikaner, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Bluing: Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Tobermory Gb: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Portmeirion Gb: Llywelyn2000, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Bristol Gb: Chris Lathom-Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Notting Hill Gb: Chris Whippet, CC BY-SA 2.0, source