The Flag of Sicily | English Vocabulary Challenge

At Scrambled Eggs, we are a very international team. Our teachers come from the USA and the UK and our reception team are Italians! Therefore, we love to learn about different cultures and share our national and regional differences. If you come to our school, in our main classroom, you will find all of the flags of Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA proudly displayed. In fact, we are a bit obsessed with the flags of different countries! But, as you know, even within Italy, there are many cultural differences and different histories also throughout the regions. One very distinct region is the island of Sicily. So, we thought we would take a look at this proud region’s flag and give you the opportunity to learn some new vocabulary at the same time. Read the information below and then try our quizzes!

The island of Sicily has a long and interesting history. It’s certainly not straight-forward anyway! Humans lived on the island even as far back as 12,000 BC. Then the Greeks came and it became the site of the Sicilian and Punic Wars. After the fall of Rome, Sicily was ruled by many different kingdoms, from the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines and then eventually the kingdoms of Naples and of Two Sicilies. Italian reunification brought the region into the new nation of Italy and after World War Two it was recognised as an autonomous region of the Italian Republic.

As well as an interesting history, Sicily is well-known for its fantastic natural landscapes. The island is roughly in the shape of a triangle and from beautiful beaches, hills, rivers and even volcanoes, Sicily has it all. It has a typical Mediterranean climate, with mild and wet winters and with hot and dry summers. Because of the fantastic history of the island, there are many historic monuments left for tourists to see, such as Greek and Roman temples. The historic centres of cities like Palermo and Catania are very enchanting, and walking through you feel like you are stepping back in time. The Sicilan cuisine is delightfully diverse and features different dishes such as cannoli and arancine.

The flag of Sicily is extremely interesting. It is very colourful, with a red and yellow background which represents the colours of the two cities Palermo and Corleone. The flag also features the head of a medusa with three legs. This and the wheat ears symbolise the fertility of the island because it such a good place to grow fresh food. The flag has taken many different forms in the past but the version of today has been used since 1990.

We hope you enjoyed reading about Sicily and it’s flag… Now try the quizzes below to test your knowledge of the meaning and the words in bold!