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The banner o Greece (popularly referred tae as the galanolefki or the kianolefki, the "blue-white") is based on nine equal horizontal stripes o blue alternatin wi white. Thare is a blue canton in the upper hoist-side corner bearin a white cross; the cross seembolizes Greek Orthodoxy, the establisht releegion o the fowk o Greece an Greek Cypriots. Accordin tae popular tradeetion, the nine stripes represent the nine seellables o the phrase "Ελευθερία ή Θάνατος" ("Freedom or Daith", " E-lef-the-ri-a i Tha-na-tos"), the five blue stripes for the seellables "Έλευθερία" an the fower white stripes "ή Θάνατος". The nine stripes are an aa said tae represent the letters o the wird "freedom" (Greek: Ελευθερία). Thare is an' a' a different theory, that the nine stripes seembolise the nine Muses, the goddesses o airt an civilization (nine haes tradeetionally been ane o the nummers o reference for the Greeks).^[1] The offeecial banner ratio is 2:3.^[2]

The blazon o the banner is Azure, fower bars Argent; on a canton o the field a Greek cross throughoot o the seicont. The shade o blue uised in the banner haes varied throughoot its history, frae licht blue tae daurk blue, the latter bein increasingly uised syne the late 1960s.

The abuin patterns wur offeecially adoptit bi the First Naitional Assembly at Epidaurus on 13 Januar 1822. Blue an white hae mony interpretations, seembolisin the colours o the famed Greek sky an sea (combined wi the white clouds an waves), traditional colours o Greek claes in the islands an the mainland, etc.