The middle stripe on Estonia’s national flag is black. The flag is a horizontal tricolour arranged blue at the top, black in the middle, and white at the bottom.
In Estonian, the flag is called sinimustvalge, literally “blue-black-white,” a name that directly preserves the stripe order. The design originated with the Estonian Students’ Society in 1881 and became a major symbol of Estonian national identity before independence was declared in 1918.
The Soviet occupation in 1940 banned the flag and made public use of its blue, black, and white colours punishable. Estonians in exile continued displaying it, while the tricolour re-emerged publicly during the late-1980s independence movement.
The flag returned to Tallinn’s Pikk Hermann tower on 24 February 1989, the anniversary of Estonia’s 1918 declaration of independence. Blue is commonly associated with the sky and lakes, black with the soil and past hardships, and white with light, snow, and hope.