There have been several designs for a

peace Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence, and everything that discusses achieving human welfare through justice and peaceful conditions. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (suc ...

flag.

White-bordered national flag

The

white flag White flags have had different meanings throughout history and depending on the locale. Contemporary use The white flag is an internationally recognized protective sign of truce or ceasefire and for negotiation. It is also used to symboliz ...

is recognized in most of the world as a flag of surrender, truce or ceasefire. The first mention of a white flag used in this context is made during the Eastern Han dynasty (AD 25–220). A white flag was also used by the anti-war movement during the

US Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded f ...

in 1861. In 1891, the third Universal Peace Congress in Rome devised a generalized Peace Flag design, which was simply the home nation's flag bordered in white to signify non-violent conflict resolution. This was used (although not officially adopted) by the

American Peace Society The American Peace Society was a pacifist group founded upon the initiative of William Ladd, in New York City, May 8, 1828. It was formed by the merging of many state and local societies, from New York, Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, ...

and the Universal Peace Union. It was designed by Henry Pettit.

The Pro Concordia Labor flag

In the 1890s, expatriate American Cora Slocomb di Brazza Savorgnan, the Countess Di Brazzà, invented a universal peace flag with three upright bands: yellow, purple, and white, which became the peace flag of the

International Peace Bureau The International Peace Bureau (IPB; ), founded in 1891, is one of the world's oldest international peace federations. The organisation was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910 for acting "as a link between the peace societies of the various ...

. Originally, there was a complicated symbol on the middle band: "a shield ... surmounted by a man's and a woman's clasped hands, sustained by a pair of dove wings with a white star aloft; on the shield can appear any device chosen by the association adopting the flag, or simply the number of enrollment among the users of the flag, or the motto ''Pro Concordia Labor'' (For Peace I Work), or this motto may be placed upon a ribbon on the flag beneath the shield, or on a streamer (white) from the flag staff (blue, the color of promise) surmounted by a star with the motto of the association or individual using the flag upon the other white streamer". This flag was adopted by the

International Council of Women The International Council of Women (ICW) is a women's organization working across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating women's rights, human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C ...

in 1896. In 1904, it lost the complicated design and became a simple tricolor.

The Earth flag

, a Methodist minister from

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in Mahoning County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, 11th-most populous city in Ohio with a population of 60,068 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Mahoning ...

designed the first world peace flag of the Earth, using rainbow stripes, stars and a globe. In 1913 and 1929, he made a peace tour through Europe with his flag. He traveled around the world arguing for "the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God". The Universal Peace Congress eventually came to adopt Kirk's flag as its official World Peace Flag, and it was subsequently adopted by the American Peace Society as well as other groups. It consisted of "the earth on a blue field covered with white stars; a white band crossed the globe and to the left was broken up into a spectrum representing the variations of the human race—different, but united in peace". The flag also shows 46 stars surrounding the globe and the spectrum. In 1938, Kirk authored an autobiography, ''Stranger than fiction: four times around the world, designer of world flag, a world builder, at 80 years makes a new start in life''.

The Banner of Peace

The ''banner of peace'' is a symbol of the

Roerich Pact The Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments or Roerich Pact is an inter-American treaty. The most important idea of the Roerich Pact is the legal recognition that the defense of cultural objects is ...

. This pact was the first international treaty dedicated to the protection of artistic and scientific institutions and historical monuments. It was signed on 15 April 1935. The banner of peace was proposed by

Nicholas Roerich Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (), better known as Nicholas Roerich (; October 9, 1874 – December 13, 1947), was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophist, philosopher, and public figure. In his youth he was influenced by Russ ...

for an international pact for the protection of culture values.

The Rainbow flag

The most common recent design is a

rainbow flag A rainbow flag is a multicolored flag consisting of the colors of the rainbow. The designs differ, but many of the colors are based on the seven spectral colors of the visible light spectrum. History In the 18th century, American Revolutionary ...

representing peace, first used in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

at a peace march in 1961. The flag was inspired by similar multi-coloured flags used in demonstrations against

nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...

s. A previous version had featured a dove drawn by

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

. The most common variety has seven colours—

purple Purple is a color similar in appearance to violet light. In the RYB color model historically used in the arts, purple is a secondary color created by combining red and blue pigments. In the CMYK color model used in modern printing, purple is ...

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

azure Azure may refer to: Color * Azure (color), a hue of blue ** Azure (heraldry) ** Shades of azure, shades and variations Arts and media * ''Azure'' (Art Farmer and Fritz Pauer album), 1987 * Azure (Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell album), 2013 * ...

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

, and

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

—and is emblazoned in bold with the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

word ''PACE'', meaning "peace". It became popular with the ''Pace da tutti i balconi'' ("peace from every balcony") campaign in 2002, started as a protest against the impending

invasion of Iraq An invasion is a military offensive of combatants of one geopolitical entity, usually in large numbers, entering territory controlled by another similar entity, often involving acts of aggression. Generally, invasions have objectives ...

. At that time its use was met with criticism from the Italian LGBT community for being too similar to the LGBT six-color gay pride flag (which was originally created in San Francisco California in 1979 and had started being used regularly in Italy a couple of years earlier during the 2000 inaugural

WorldPride WorldPride is a series of international LGBT pride events coordinated by InterPride; they are hosted in conjunction with local LGBT pride festivals, with host cities selected via bids voted on during InterPride's annual general meetings. Its cor ...

celebration in Rome). The flag was flown from balconies in all Italian

cities A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

by citizens against the war. Its use spread to other countries too, and the Italian ''Pace'' was sometimes, but not everywhere, replaced with the corresponding translation in the local languages. According to

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

, producer Franco Belsito had produced about 1,000 flags per year for 18 years, and suddenly had to cope with a demand in the range of the millions. Common variations include moving the purple stripe down below the azure one, and adding a white stripe on top. The seven-color peace flag is not to be confused with the similar six-color gay pride flag, which does not have

and has the colors in the opposite order with red at the top.

The Peace Flag initiative

"The Peace Flag" is an initiative that aims to unify all nations underneath one common symbol on International Peace Day. While there are various icons of peace – the

olive branch The olive branch, a ramus of '' Olea europaea'', is a symbol of peace. It is generally associated with the customs of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and is connected with supplication to divine beings and persons in power. Likewise, it is f ...

, the dove – there is no official world flag of peace adopted by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

. This initiative proposes that, for one day a year on 21 September, every country raises an all-white version of their national flag to represent that we are all one. In 2013, embassies of Colombia, Equatorial Guinea and Ecuador in London officially agreed to support The Peace Flag initiative by raising a colorless version of their respective flags on 21 September. The initiative was nominated for a White Pencil in 2012 at

D&AD Design and Art Direction (D&AD), formerly known as British Design and Art Direction, is a British educational organisation that was created in 1962 to promote excellence in design and advertising. Its main offices are in Spitalfields in London. ...

for its contribution towards peace, in support of Peace One Day. File:Colombian Flag of Peace.jpg, Colombian Flag of Peace File:Equatorial Guinean Flag of Peace.jpg, Equatorial Guinean Flag of Peace File:Ecuadorian Flag of Peace.jpg, Ecuadorian Flag of Peace

The largest peace flag

The first large peace flag was made in

Lecce Lecce (; ) is a city in southern Italy and capital of the province of Lecce. It is on the Salentine Peninsula, at the heel of the Italian Peninsula, and is over two thousand years old. Because of its rich Baroque architecture, Lecce is n ...

Salento Salento (; Salentino dialect, Salentino: ''Salentu''; Griko language, Salento Griko: ) is a Cultural area, cultural, List of historical states of Italy, historical, and geographic region at the southern end of the administrative region of Apuli ...

, Italy by the association "GPace - Youth for peace" on Saturday, 14 November 2009. It was . Three years later this record was broken. On 21 September 2012, the Belgian Peace Organisation Vredeshuis Ghent and five city schools unfolded the worlds largest peace flag
vrede.be
() in the historic center of

Ghent Ghent ( ; ; historically known as ''Gaunt'' in English) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the Provinces of Belgium, province ...

. The action aimed to reinforce the demand to disarm in order to make room for sustainable development. The largest peace flag was made in

Prato Prato ( ; ) is a city and municipality (''comune'') in Tuscany, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Prato. The city lies in the northeast of Tuscany, at an elevation of , at the foot of Monte Retaia (the last peak in the Calvana ch ...

, Tuscany, Italy with the fabrics produced in the city and showed at the Italian liberation day (25 April 2003) on the hill around the city to protest against the war in Iraq . It was approximately 1000m×13m (3280,84 ft × 42,65 ft). The flag was paraded through the streets of Prato again on 25 April 2025.

Gallery

File:US Peace flag.svg, United States flag with peace sign canton File:GreekRainbowPeaceFlag.svg,

Greek language Greek (, ; , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic languages, Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy (in Calabria and Salento), south ...

rainbow peace flag File:Bandiere della pace a Milano 2003.jpg, "Pace da tutti i balconi": peace flags hanging from windows in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, in March 2003. Over 1,000,000 were hung against the Iraq war.

References

Bibliography

External links

{{Commons category, Peace flags
The Peace Flag

World Peace Service flag
Activism flags

Flag A flag is a piece of textile, fabric (most often rectangular) with distinctive colours and design. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design employed, and fla ...

Rainbow flags