Flag of Bulgaria

How to read it

Article 166 of the constitution of 1991 says the flag is a tricolour, white, green and red from the top, placed horizontally. The Law on the State Seal and the National Flag of 24 April 1998 calls it a national symbol that expresses the independence and sovereignty of the Bulgarian state, with stripes of equal size. Its annex makes the flag 3 by 5, in standard sizes from 18 × 30 cm (7 × 12 in) to 129 × 215 cm (51 × 85 in), and fixes the colours: white of at least 80 per cent whiteness, green Pantone textile 17-5936 TC and red 18-1664 TC. A paper flag for mass events is printed in Pantone 347 U green and 032 U red, and the standard colour samples are kept at the Bulgarian Institute of Metrology. Flags on Bulgarian ships at sea and on rivers are 2 by 3. The same flag is the national, merchant and state flag, Store norske leksikon says; it was adopted on 16 April 1879.

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Telling it from the Hungarian and Italian flags

Hungary’s flag has the same three colours in horizontal stripes of equal width, but in another order: red, white and green from the top, under Hungary’s Fundamental Law. On Bulgaria’s the white is at the top and the green in the middle. Italy’s flag is green, white and red in three vertical bands. Iran’s is horizontal too, green, white and red from the top, with its red emblem in the middle of the white.

Why the middle stripe is green

The flag was adopted on 16 April 1879, after the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire left Bulgaria self-governing, and it was inspired by Russia’s flag, Store norske leksikon says; but the country had to give up the Pan-Slavic colours and make the middle stripe green instead of blue. Russia’s flag is white, blue and red. From 1947 to 27 November 1990 the people’s republic put the state emblem on the white stripe next to the pole.