Regional indicator
Regional indicator symbols are 26 letter-shaped code points that combine in pairs to form flag emoji from ISO country codes.
In more detail
There is no single code point for any national flag. A flag is written as two regional indicator letters matching the region's ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code, and the font draws a flag when it recognises the pair.
When a device has no artwork for a pair — or deliberately omits it — the two letters show through instead. That is the standard's designed fallback, not an error.
Examples
| Example | What it shows |
|---|---|
| 🇰🇷 | Regional indicators K + R, shown as the flag of South Korea |
| 🇺🇳 | U + N, the United Nations flag |
See it for yourself
The Unicode Inspector breaks any text into its code points, so you can watch this behave rather than take our word for it. Paste an example above into it and the structure is laid out step by step.
Source and review
Defined in UTS #51, Flags. The explanation on this page is written by SymbolTap Editorial; the normative wording is in the linked document.
Last reviewed 2026-07-31.