Wales flag emoji finally arrives on Twitter

New emoji flags for Wales, Scotland and England have finally arrived on tablets and smart phones.

It follows a campaign for the national flags by Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia and BBC Wales' social media lead Owen Williams in March 2016.

Unicode, the authority on computer text and characters, agreed to add the three flags to the next release of emojis.

Technology companies such as Apple and Google will now be able to introduce the flags to their software.

A UK flag is already available, but Northern Ireland will have to wait as it does not have official status, although it is included in an unrelated proposal asking Unicode to adopt "regional indicator" emojis.

Other emoji flags already available include those for Ascension Island, St Barthelemy, Curacao, Diego Garcia and Djibouti.

Mr Burge said: "The Welsh flag is a great flag. I know I usually end up using the dragon emoji when talking about Wales, so it's a big improvement.

"My grandparents in particular will be very pleased being Welsh and huge emoji users."

Mr Burge said anyone who uses Twitter via the website will be able to access the new emojis and they are expecting more platforms to support them no later than the end of the year.