Flag of Poland
Poland’s flag is two equal stripes, white above red, in the colours of Poland’s coat of arms: a white eagle on a red shield. The white stripe is the eagle and the red stripe the shield, as Professor Beata Możejko of the University of Gdańsk explains; the flag law itself describes the colours without giving them a meaning.
Easily confused with
- Flag of IndonesiaIndonesia’s flag is two equal horizontal stripes, red above white, called Sang Merah Putih (“the Red and White”). The flag law gives the colours no meaning; the reading taught in Indonesia, as detikEdu and CNN Indonesia give it, is red for courage and white for purity.
- Flag of MonacoMonaco’s flag is two equal horizontal stripes, red above white. The constitution sets the design and gives the colours no meaning; red and white are the colours of the arms of the Grimaldi family, the princely house, Store norske leksikon says.
- Flag of MaltaMalta’s flag is white by the pole and red, with a picture of the George Cross, edged in red, in the top corner of the white: the cross King George VI awarded to Malta on 15 April 1942, during the siege of the Second World War. The constitution gives white and red no meaning; Store norske leksikon says the two colours have been used in Malta for several hundred years, the red probably after the red flag of the Order of St John.
- Flag of the Czech RepublicThe Czech flag is white over red with a blue wedge from the pole reaching to the middle of the flag. No law gives it a meaning, and the Czech foreign ministry says the state colours have no symbolism of their own; white and red were the colours of the old Kingdom of Bohemia, Store norske leksikon says, and what the blue stands for is disputed.
How to read it
Article 28 of the Polish Constitution makes white and red the colours of the Republic, and a crowned white eagle on a red field its coat of arms. The detail is in the Act of 31 January 1980 on the arms, colours and anthem: two horizontal stripes of the same width, white on top and red below, and white on the left when the colours hang vertically, seen from the front. The act’s annexes set the flag’s height to length at 5:8 and give each colour as CIE colour coordinates. There are two forms of the state flag: the plain white and red, and the same flag with the coat of arms in the middle of the white stripe, the eagle’s height two-fifths of the flag’s height. The 5:8 proportions go back to the law of 1 August 1919 on the arms and colours of the Republic.
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Telling it from the flags of Indonesia and Monaco
Indonesia and Monaco fly the same two colours the other way up, red above white. Indonesia’s flag law of 2009 makes its flag two stripes of equal size, red on top and white below, with a height two-thirds of the length, so it is a little shorter for its height than Poland’s 5:8 flag. Monaco’s constitution describes its national flag as two equal horizontal stripes, the red in the upper part and the white in the lower. A flag with the white on top is Poland’s.
Why the white is on top
The colours come from the arms of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education says, and were first regulated by a resolution of the Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland of 7 February 1831. The white goes at the top because the eagle is a more important part of the arms than the field behind it, the government portal powroty.gov.pl explains.
The shade of red
The red in the present annex is crimson (karmazyn), a dark red, and the white is closer to silvery grey than to snow white, powroty.gov.pl notes. The red has changed: the first description of the flag, in 1921, set a crimson a little lighter than today’s, and from 1927, for more than fifty years, the red was vermilion, a red leaning towards orange.
Flag Day on 2 May
Since a 2004 amendment to the act, 2 May has been the Day of the Flag of the Republic of Poland (Dzień Flagi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej). The Ministry of Science and Higher Education gives one reason for the date: on 2 May 1945 the Polish flag was hung in Berlin on the Reichstag and on the Victory Column. The same day is also the Day of Polonia and Poles Abroad.
Where this symbol came from
oldsymbols.comEagle displayedThe white eagle of Poland’s coat of arms gives the flag its white stripe; the heraldic eagle’s history is on oldsymbols.com.Read next
- Next in European flagsFlag of UkraineUkraine’s flag is two equal horizontal stripes, blue above yellow, as Article 20 of the Constitution describes it. The law gives the colours no meaning: the familiar reading of blue sky over yellow fields is a popular explanation, and Fakty ICTV reports that researchers consider it rather stereotyped.
- The same shape in African flagsFlag of AngolaAngola’s flag is red over black with a yellow emblem in the centre: part of a cogwheel, a machete and a five-pointed star. Its constitution says the red is the blood shed by Angolans under colonial oppression, in the liberation struggle and in defence of the country, and the black is the African continent; the cogwheel stands for workers and industry, the machete for peasants, farming and the armed struggle, the star for international solidarity and progress, and their yellow for the country’s wealth.
More european flags
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with lines or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Ustawa z dnia 31 stycznia 1980 r. o godle, barwach i hymnie Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej oraz o pieczęciach państwowych (consolidated text, Dz.U. 2025 poz. 299), Act of 31 January 1980 on the arms, colours and anthem of the Republic of Poland and on state seals; consolidated text, Dziennik Ustaw 2025 item 299, Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Dziennik Ustaw, via api.sejm.gov.pl), Art. 4, 6, 6a; annexes 2 and 3
- Constitution of the Republic of Poland, 1997, Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2 April 1997, Article 28 (English translation), Constitute Project, Article 28
- Co warto wiedzieć o polskiej fladze i barwach narodowych?, Powroty portal, information as of 29 April 2024, quoting Prof. Beata Możejko (University of Gdańsk), Powroty (Ochotnicze Hufce Pracy, gov.pl), Sections on the colours, the shades and the proportions
- Dzień Flagi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, Ministry of Science and Higher Education news item, Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego (gov.pl), Main text
- Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia Nomor 24 Tahun 2009, Law No. 24 of 2009 on the National Flag, Language, Emblem and Anthem, Article 4(1), Hukumonline, Pasal 4 ayat (1)
- Constitution of the Principality of Monaco, 1962, Constitution of 17 December 1962 (rev. 2002), Article 7 (English translation), Constitute Project, Article 7
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 13, 2026. How we research
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