Flag of Austria

How to read it

Article 8a of the Federal Constitutional Law (Bundes-Verfassungsgesetz) says the colours of the Republic of Austria are red-white-red, and that the flag is three horizontal stripes of equal width, white in the middle and red above and below. The Wappengesetz (coat of arms act) of 28 March 1984 adds the federal service flag (Dienstflagge des Bundes): the same stripes with the federal arms in the middle, reaching evenly into both red stripes, at a height to length of 2 to 3. It gives a ratio only for the service flag, and no colour shades for either. The Republic took the colours over in 1918 from the old Babenberg flag, Austria-Forum’s AEIOU encyclopedia says, and made the plain red-white-red flag its national flag in 1919 and again in 1945, according to Store norske leksikon.

Also searched as: austria flag, austria flag meaning, austrian flag, austrian flag meaning, flag of austria.

Telling it from the Latvian and Lebanese flags

Latvia’s flag is also red, white and red, but its red is dark and its white is a narrow stripe between two broad ones, on a flag twice as long as it is high, Store norske leksikon says. Lebanon’s flag goes the other way: under its constitution the white stripe is as deep as both red stripes together, with a green cedar in the centre. On Austria’s flag all three stripes are the same width.

The bloodstained tunic of Acre

The best-known story about the colours is a legend of the arms. After the storming of Acre in 1191, on the Third Crusade, the Austrian duke’s tunic was said to be soaked in blood except for the strip under his broad sword belt, which stayed white. The historian Hermann Wiesflecker calls it a “Wappensage”, a legend made up for the arms. He argues that the Babenbergs took the red-white-red shield in 1192, when they inherited the banners of the Styrian Otakars, and that its first appearance on a seal of 1230 is chance.

The eagle on the service flag

The federal arms on the service flag are a black single-headed eagle with gold beak and claws and a red tongue. It wears a gold mural crown with three visible battlements, holds a gold sickle in its right foot and a gold hammer in its left, and has a broken iron chain between its feet. On its breast is a red shield with a silver bar across it, the pattern of the flag. Store norske leksikon says the crown, sickle and hammer stand for the burghers, the farmers and the workers, and that the broken chain was added in 1945 as a symbol of freedom.