Flag: Comoros Emoji

🇰🇲 is the flag of the Union of the Comoros, a three-island archipelago in the Western Indian Ocean, 300 km off the east coast of Africa between Madagascar and Mozambique. Four horizontal stripes (yellow, white, red, blue from the top) with a green triangular chevron on the hoist carrying a white crescent and four white five-pointed stars. Both the stripes and the stars represent the four main islands of the Comorian archipelago: Mohéli (yellow), Mayotte (white), Anjouan (red), and Grande Comore (blue). The crescent and stars represent Islam, the religion of about 99% of Comorians. The flag was officially adopted on December 23, 2001, the fifth Comorian flag design since independence.

The four-island framing is contested: the Comoros has claimed the fourth island, Mayotte, since France held the 1974 independence referendum and split the vote by island (three islands voted for independence, Mayotte voted to stay French). The Comoros declared independence unilaterally on July 6, 1975 for all four islands; France kept Mayotte; every Comorian flag since has kept one stripe and one star for Mayotte, which in 2011 became France's 101st département. Population sits around 869,600 in 2026, most of them on Anjouan (Nzwani) and Grande Comore (Ngazidja). Official languages: Shikomori (the local Comorian Bantu language), French, and Arabic.

On phones, 🇰🇲 is a Regional Indicator Sequence (K + M, matching the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code KM) added in Emoji 2.0 in 2015. The emoji shows up in three main places: the Comorian diaspora in Marseille and Paris (roughly 200,000 people, the largest single Comorian community on earth outside the islands), football feeds around Coelacanths FC (the national team, debuted at AFCON 2022 with a group-stage win over Ghana), and perfume-industry content since Comoros supplies roughly 60% of the world's ylang-ylang essential oil to Chanel No. 5 and most other luxury perfumes.

🇰🇲 has a small baseline but a distinctive social footprint. The first and largest driver is the diaspora in France. Roughly 200,000 Comorians live in metropolitan France, mostly in Marseille's northern arrondissements and the Paris banlieue. Every Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Independence Day (July 6), and grand-mariage wedding pulls 🇰🇲 into Marseille feeds in volume.

The second driver is football. Coelacanths FC debuted at AFCON 2021 (played January 2022) and shocked Ghana 3-2 in the group stage, one of the biggest upsets in Nations Cup history. Most of the squad was born and raised in Marseille or Bordeaux and plays in French leagues; coach Amir Abdou is himself Marseillais-Comorian. Every AFCON cycle lifts 🇰🇲 in French football feeds.

The third driver is perfume-industry press. Comoros produces 30 to 40 tonnes of ylang-ylang essential oil a year, about 60% of world supply. Ylang-ylang, vanilla, and cloves together account for 80% of Comorian exports. Every Chanel No. 5 feature story circles back to Anjouan.

A smaller but recurring fourth driver is political news. Mayotte-sovereignty posts from Comorian or French-overseas accounts, Azali Assoumani election-crisis cycles (January 2024 turned violent with one death, 25 injured, curfew, and internet blackout), and Operation Wuambushu coverage from the Mayotte side all lift 🇰🇲 briefly.

The Comoros joined the pan-Arab-palette flag family late and has changed its flag more often than almost any country on earth. The first Comorian flag was designed in 1963 by French heraldist Suzanne Gauthier while the islands were still a French overseas territory: a green field with a white crescent and four stars, the stars representing Grande Comore, Mohéli, Anjouan, and Mayotte. The four-island claim was thus coded into the flag 12 years before Comorian independence.

Comoros declared independence unilaterally on July 6, 1975 through the Chamber of Deputies, while France conducted island-by-island counting of the 1974 referendum. The first post-independence flag under Ali Soilih (1975 to 1978) inverted the design: red and green with the crescent moved to the hoist and the stars rearranged into a diamond. Soilih's government was toppled by French mercenary Bob Denard in a coup on May 13, 1978, and Ahmed Abdallah returned the flag to plain green with a centered crescent and four stars in a line.

The current flag was adopted on December 23, 2001 under Colonel Azali Assoumani after his first presidency. The redesign added the four horizontal stripes (one per island, carrying explicit island colors) and moved the green back to a hoist chevron. Every Comorian flag since 1975 has kept the four stars and the crescent, and thus the claim on Mayotte. The four-stripe version is the most explicit: Mayotte gets its own horizontal band in white.

Political flag etiquette on the islands is heavier than in most places. Because three of the four islands (Anjouan and Mohéli attempted secession in 1997) have at times had their own breakaway flags, the Union flag is used carefully to signal federal unity rather than a single-island identity.

Regional Indicator Sequence U+1F1F0U+1F1F0 (K) + U+1F1F2U+1F1F2 (M), matching Comoros's ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code KM. Added in Emoji 2.0 (2015). Renders as 'KM' text on Microsoft Windows, which does not display country flag emojis.

🇰🇲 reads differently depending on who posts it. A Comorian-in-Marseille poster uses it alongside 🇫🇷 for the usual diaspora markers: Eid, weddings, football, family visits. A Comorian-on-the-islands poster will often pair it with one of the island emojis (🏝️) or with 🕌 to mark a religious event; football feeds are almost the only space where young Comorians post it without religious or political framing.

The Comorian calendar runs heavily on Islam and on an elaborate social calendar built around the grand mariage (ada on Ngazidja, harusi elsewhere). Two types of marriage exist: the petit mariage (mna daho), a quiet legal ceremony, and the ada, a two-week public celebration with djaliko dances, the ukumbi all-night music, processions, and gold jewelry handoffs that can cost up to €50,000 per family. Most couples do the petit mariage early and save for a decade or more before the ada; a man's full social status on Ngazidja only activates after he has completed his ada.

Gender-coded dances run the wedding week: the twarab orchestra plays on Saturday nights; the deba and mbiwi women's percussion dances fill the afternoons; men wear white kandzu robes and red-trimmed kofia caps. Women wear patterned salouva wraps and kishali shoulder scarves, and apply msindzano, a pale sandalwood-paste face mask as both sunscreen and beauty treatment. Mahorais weddings on Mayotte follow the same grammar, which is part of why Comorian and Mahorais diaspora accounts often share the same wedding content without clarifying which island.

For travelers, 🇰🇲 reads adventure-off-the-beaten-path: the islands have no luxury resort infrastructure, no chain hotels, and a tourism volume in the low thousands per year compared to millions for Mauritius or Réunion. Most visitors fly through Nairobi or Antananarivo, stay in family-run guesthouses, and come for whales (July to November), Karthala hikes, or scuba.

• Eid al-Fitr (Idi el Fitri): End of Ramadan. 2026: March 20-21. Women in kanga and salouva, msindzano face masks, communal prayer, open-house visits.
• Eid al-Adha (Idi el Hadj): Feast of the Sacrifice. 2026: May 27. Goat or zebu slaughtered and meat redistributed; pilau and mtsolola on every table.
• Independence Day: July 6. Commemorates the 1975 unilateral declaration. Flag-raising in Moroni, parade, diaspora celebrations in Marseille and Paris.
• Grand Mariage (Ada) season: July and August. The defining social window of the year. Two-week weddings on Ngazidja, djaliko dances, ukumbi all-night music, gold handoffs.
• Maulida an-Nabi: Prophet Muhammad's birthday. 2026: August 25. Maulida shenge chants at village mosques.

• •Comoros produces about 60% of the world's ylang-ylang essential oil. Anjouan alone has 350 distilleries.
• •Vanilla, ylang-ylang, and cloves together make up about 80% of Comorian exports. The islands are sometimes called 'the perfumed islands.'
• •Comoros has changed its flag five times since independence. The crescent and four stars are the only elements that have stayed.
• •The Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), a 'living fossil' fish with a 350-million-year-old lineage once thought extinct, was rediscovered off the Comorian coast. The Coelacanth Marine Park protects its habitat on Grande Comore's southern tip.
• •Mount Karthala on Grande Comore is one of the largest active volcanoes on earth. It has erupted roughly every 11 years on average since the 19th century.
• •A Comorian grand mariage (ada) can cost up to €50,000, roughly 74,000 USD, and runs up to two weeks. Most couples save for a decade before they can host one.
• •The Comoros national football team (Coelacanths FC) beat Ghana 3-2 at AFCON 2022 on their tournament debut. Most of the squad was born in Marseille.
• •About 200,000 Comorians live in metropolitan France, most of them in Marseille. Marseille's Comorian diaspora is roughly a quarter the size of the on-island population.
• •Comoros declared independence unilaterally on July 6, 1975, counting all four islands; France counted the 1974 referendum by island and kept Mayotte.