Flag of Austria.html



Flag of Austria

Use	Civil flag and ensign.
Proportion	2:3
Adopted	1230
Design	three equal horizontal bands of red, white, and red
Use	State and war flag and state and naval ensign.
Proportion	2:3
Design	three equal horizontal bands of red, white, and red, with the coat of arms surmounted

The Post-War Period Silver Coin

The flag of Austria has three equal horizontal bands of red (top), white, and red. The Austrian flag is possibly the oldest national flag design in the world. The Danish flag, said to be the oldest national flag "in continuous use", is at least a century younger.^{citation needed}

History

Origins

Duke Friedrich II (1210-1246), the last of the Babenberg dynasty, who was nicknamed the "Quarrelsome" or the "Warlike", designed a new coat of arms in red-white-red in the year 1230 in his attempt to become more independent from the Holy Roman Empire.

Legend

According to legend, the flag was invented by Duke Leopold V of Austria (1157–1194) as a consequence of his fighting during the Crusades. After a fierce battle, his white battle dress was completely drenched in blood. When he removed his belt, the cloth underneath was untouched by it, revealing the comibation of red-white-red. So taken was he by this singular sight that he adopted the colors and scheme as his banner.

Use under the Monarchy

Although the combination of red-white-red was since the late Middle Ages widely considered to be the "Austrian" colours and used by both the Babenberg and the Habsburg dynasties in connection with their Austrian territories, the national flag of Austria (in a modern sense) until 1918 was black-yellow. These were the family colours of the House of Habsburg, and were themselves in part derived from the Holy Roman Empire.

Flag of the House of Habsburg.

Beginning in the reign of Emperor Joseph II., the Austrian, later Austro-Hungarian Navy used a Naval Ensign (Marineflagge) based on the red-white-red colours, and augmented with a shield of similar colours.

Flag of the Austrian, later Austro-Hungarian Navy.

Both of these flags became obsolete with the dissolution of the Empire in 1918, and the newly formed Republic of Austria adopted red-white-red as its national flag.

See also

• The flag has been the main motive of many collector coins, one of the most recent is the 20 euro Post War Period coin, minted in 17 September 2003. The obverse of the coin shows the Austrian coat of arms flanked by the Austrian flag and the European Union flag.

• The same design (rectangle with red-white-red horizontal bands) is also used to mark "No entry" on European inland waterways.¹

• List of Austrian flags
• Flags of Austrian states
• Coat of arms of Austria

References

External links

• Austria at Flags of the World
• The Symbols of Austria