The national flag of Estonia (Eesti lipp) is a tricolour featuring three equal horizontal bands of blue at the top, black in the centre, and white at the bottom.

[2] The tricolour was publicly used as the national flag until the first year of World War II, when the Soviet army invaded and occupied Estonia in June 1940.

Following the annexation of Estonia by the USSR in August 1940, the new Stalinist regime banned the Estonian flag, and its use as well as any use of its blue, black and white colour combination became punishable by laws of the Soviet Union.

On 23 February 1989, the Soviet red flag was taken down permanently from the Pikk Hermann tower of the Toompea Castle in the capital city Tallinn.

In the 1820s, in the University of Tartu (Dorpat), three eponymous German-speaking student corporations (corps) were established for each of the three Baltic provinces (Estonia, Livonia and Curonia).

Public display (for example, as part of attire) of these colour combinations was prohibited by the Imperial Russian authorities in 1821–1862, in 1887–1904 and, after the outbreak of World War I, finally and completely banned during the anti-German propaganda campaign in 1915.

Formally, the tricolour became the national flag of the newly independent country by the decision of the Estonian Provisional Government on 21 November 1918.

On 12 December 1918, the flag was for the first time raised on top of the Pikk Hermann tower, and that location has since then become its most symbolic site of display.

[citation needed] The colour shades are defined by Parliament and Government Office as follows:[1][7] The most recent Estonian Flag Act was passed 23 March 2005 and came into force on 1 January 2006.

In 2001, journalist Kaarel Tarand made a similar suggestion again – that the flag design be changed from a tricolour to a Nordic cross with the same three colours.