Two olive branches appear below the map on Cyprus’s national flag.
The branches are olive green and sit beneath a copper-colored outline of the entire island. Their placement is deliberate: olive branches are traditional symbols of peace, and on Cyprus’s flag they represent the hope for harmony between the island’s Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities.
Cyprus adopted the flag on 16 August 1960, when it became independent under the Zürich and London Agreements. The design was created by Turkish Cypriot artist İsmet Güney. Constitutional rules required a neutral design, excluding the blue and red associated with Greece and Turkey, as well as crosses and crescents.
A common mix-up is confusing the two branches with the island’s map or counting individual leaves. The flag also uses copper to recall Cyprus’s historic copper deposits. Its design was slightly revised in 2006, but the two-branch arrangement remained.