Blue

Lapis lazuli has been mined in the mountains of Badakhshan for more than six thousand years. Ground to powder it gave ultramarine, the costliest blue in European painting.

The chadari is a full-length covering for women with a mesh panel over the eyes. In Kabul and the north it is most often a light blue.

The blue band of the flag stands for the wish of the Armenian people to live under peaceful skies. The red above it is for the highlands and the struggle to survive.

The flag is sky blue, white and sky blue, created by Manuel Belgrano in 1812. National teams are called the Albiceleste, the white and sky blue.

Boca Juniors play in blue and gold. The club's story is that in 1907 it took the colours of the flag of the next ship into port, which was Swedish.

To be true blue is to be honestly and loyally Australian. The phrase is older than the country, but Australians have made it their own.

The Torres Strait Islander flag has a blue band for the sea between green bands for the land. A white dhari, a dancer's headdress, sits at the centre.

Light blue and white are the colours of Iemanja, the sea goddess of Candomble and Umbanda. On 2 February in Salvador her followers send flowers and gifts out to sea.

The light blue of the flag stands for rain. In this dry country the word pula means rain, blessing and the national currency.

The flag of Quebec, the Fleurdelise, is blue with a white cross and four white lilies. Blue is the colour of Quebec nationalism and of the Parti Quebecois.

The flag is called La Estrella Solitaria, the lone star. Its blue square stands for the sky and the Pacific, white for the snow of the Andes and red for blood shed for independence.

Blue is the colour of the Conservative Party, the old rival of the Liberals. Whole towns were once known as blue or red by the party they backed.

The flag has three blue stripes for the three old departments of the island, two white ones for the purity of the cause, and a red triangle with a white star.

The flag is white over red, the colours of Bohemia, with a blue wedge added in 1920 so that it could be told from the Polish flag.

The blue flower, die blaue Blume, comes from a novel by Novalis. It became the emblem of German Romanticism and stands for longing for what cannot be reached.

Prussian blue, one of the first modern synthetic pigments, was made by accident in Berlin in the early 1700s. It later coloured the coats of the Prussian army.

Royal Copenhagen porcelain is hand-painted in cobalt blue on white. Its first pattern, Blue Fluted, has been made since the factory opened in 1775.

The flag is blue, black and white. Blue is for the sky, lakes and sea, black for the soil and the dark past, and white for snow, birch bark and hope.

Ancient craftsmen made Egyptian blue, one of the first synthetic pigments, and blue-glazed faience for amulets. Blue stood for the sky and the Nile.

Many households hang a blue glass bead with an eye on it by the door or in the car to keep off the evil eye, known as hasad. Blue eye beads were already made in ancient Egypt.

The Falange, the fascist party of the Franco years, wore blue shirts, and its song Cara al Sol speaks of the new shirt. Today blue is the colour of the conservative People's Party.

The blue disc at the centre of the flag, added in 1996, stands for peace. The star on it is for the unity and equality of the country's peoples.

The flag is a blue cross on white, called the Siniristilippu. The poet Zachris Topelius proposed the colours: blue for the lakes and white for the snow.

The light blue field of the flag stands for the Pacific Ocean around the islands. It set the flag apart from the dark blue colonial ensign.

Blue was the colour of the French kings, whose arms were gold lilies on blue. It is the first band of the tricolour, and national sports teams are called Les Bleus.

At 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.

The flag is blue and white, with nine stripes and a white cross. The colours are usually read as the sea and sky and the white of the waves and clouds.

A blue glass eye, the mati, is worn on a chain or hung in homes and cars against the evil eye. Blue is held to be the colour that turns the harm back.

The flag has two sky-blue bands with white between. The blue stands for the Pacific and the Caribbean on either side of the land, and for the sky.

The flag is red, white and blue, the Pan-Slavic colours, with the chequered shield at the centre under a crown of five older regional arms.

Before green took over, blue was the colour tied to Ireland and its patron saint. A shade called Saint Patrick's blue is still used on the President's flag behind the gold harp.

The flag is white with two blue stripes and a Star of David. The stripes recall the tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, which is white with blue or black bands.

Tekhelet is the blue dye the Torah commands for one thread of the fringes on a prayer shawl. The method was lost for centuries, and some Jews now use a dye made from sea snails.

Krishna, Rama and Vishnu are painted with blue skin, the colour of the sky and the deep sea. The wheel at the centre of the national flag, the Ashoka Chakra, is navy blue.

Blue is the colour of Dalit politics. Followers of B. R. Ambedkar carry blue flags, and the Bahujan Samaj Party campaigns under a blue flag with an elephant.

The Ishtar Gate of Babylon, built under Nebuchadnezzar II, was faced with deep blue glazed bricks set with bulls and dragons. The blue imitated lapis lazuli.

The flag is blue with a red cross edged in white. The colours are read as the three elements of the land: blue mountains, white ice and snow, and red volcanic fire.

National sports teams play in blue and are called the Azzurri. Blue was the colour of the House of Savoy, which ruled Italy until 1946, and does not appear on the flag.

Indigo dyeing, called aizome, clothed ordinary people in deep blue through the Edo period. The men's national football team plays in blue and is nicknamed Samurai Blue.

In Maasai beadwork each colour has a meaning tied to cattle and the land. Blue is the sky that gives rain, and so the colour of Enkai, God.

The flag has blue bands above and below a red one, with Angkor Wat in white. Blue stands for the king, red for the nation and white for religion.

In party politics the liberal Democratic Party campaigns in blue and the conservative People Power Party in red, the reverse of the usual left and right colours in Europe.

The flag is sky blue with a golden sun and a steppe eagle. Blue is the colour of the open sky, sacred to the Turkic peoples as Tengri.

The flag has a wide blue band between two red ones, with a white disc. Blue is for the Mekong and for prosperity, and the disc for the full moon over the river.

Blue is the colour of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, founded by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike. The national cricket team also plays in dark blue with yellow.

The flag is blue, white and green: blue for rain, white for peace and green for prosperity.

The old town of Chefchaouen in the Rif mountains is washed in shades of blue. The reasons given vary: a Jewish custom, keeping houses cool, or keeping mosquitoes away.

Fes is known for pottery painted in cobalt blue on white, called Fassi blue. In Marrakesh a strong ultramarine is named Majorelle blue after the garden where it was used.

Tuareg men of the Sahara wear the tagelmust, a long veil and turban dyed with indigo. The dye rubs off on the skin, which is why they are called the blue people.

The khadag is a silk scarf offered as a mark of respect and tied to sacred cairns. The blue one is the most valued, for the eternal blue sky.

Maya blue is a bright, lasting pigment made by heating indigo with a special clay. Maya painters used it on murals, pottery and offerings to the rain god.

The flag has blue for the sky, the Atlantic and rain, red for the people, green for the land, and a golden sun for life and energy.

Adire is the indigo-dyed cloth of the Yoruba, made by women in Abeokuta and Ibadan. Patterns are tied, stitched or painted with cassava paste before the cloth goes into the dye.

Delft blue is tin-glazed pottery painted in blue on white. Potters in Delft began making it in the 1600s as a cheaper answer to Chinese porcelain.

The blue border of the flag stands for peace. The crimson inside it is read as the bravery of the Nepali people.

The flag's blue stood for the Conservative Party and its red for the Liberals. The white ground stood for peace between them.

The blue band of the flag stands for peace, truth and justice. The exact shade has changed over the years and was fixed as royal blue by law in 1998.

Blue and white painted tiles, azulejos, cover churches, stations and house fronts. The fashion for blue on white took hold in the late 1600s under the influence of Chinese porcelain and Dutch Delft.

The painted monastery of Voronet in Bukovina is covered in frescoes on a deep blue ground. The shade is known as Voronet blue.

Russian has two basic words for blue: siniy for dark blue and goluboy for light blue. Speakers treat them as two colours, as English speakers treat red and pink.