Flag of Romania

How to read it

Article 12 of the constitution of 1991 says Romania’s flag is a tricolour of three vertical stripes, blue, yellow and red in that order from the mast. A flag law of 1994, revised in 2001, sets its proportions and colours: the bands are equal and the flag is 2 by 3, Store norske leksikon says, and the official shades are cobalt blue, chrome yellow and vermilion red, Digi24 reports. The same flag is the national, merchant, state and naval flag. The plain tricolour has been the flag since a decree of 27 December 1989, which took the communist state emblem off it.

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Romania’s and Chad’s flags side by side

They are the same design. Chad’s constitution of 2023 describes vertical bands of blue, gold and red of equal size, the blue by the pole, which is Romania’s flag too. For some months after the revolution of 1989 Romania’s flag was identical to Chad’s except for the hole cut in its centre, and Romanian politicians who adopted the plain tricolour knew Chad already flew it, Digi24 reported in 2017, citing The Wall Street Journal. A spokesman for the UN Secretary-General told the paper it is up to member states to choose their own national flags.

Moldova’s flag has the same colours in the same order with its coat of arms on the yellow, and it is twice as long as it is high where Romania’s is 3 by 2, Store norske leksikon says. Andorra’s also has its arms on the yellow, and its yellow band is an eighth wider than the other two. Store norske leksikon puts Moldova’s likeness down to its having been part of Romania from 1918 to 1940.

The flag with a hole

When the uprising began in Timișoara in December 1989, people marched with flags from which the state emblem had been cut, Store norske leksikon says; they were called “the flag with a hole” (drapelul cu gaură). The communist state first put its emblem on the flag in 1948, and the emblem was changed three times before it disappeared in 1989. The new government restored the tricolour without arms by decree on 27 December 1989.

Where the colours came from

The first tricolour was introduced in the principality of Wallachia in 1834, and a flag of the same colours in horizontal stripes was used in the revolution of 1848, Store norske leksikon says. The United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia took the horizontal tricolour as their national flag in 1859, and the national assembly turned the stripes upright in 1867. The French flag was a model, the encyclopedia says, though the colours were thought to have a long tradition in the country’s own banners. Romania marks National Flag Day (Ziua Drapelului Național) every year on 26 June.

What the flag law fixes

Since 23 June 2023 no inscriptions or symbols may be added to the flag beyond those approved by law or military regulations, e-juridic reports. The same amending law (Law 176/2023) replaced the annex to Law 75/1994 that sets the flag’s model and the intensity of its colours. In the text the Senate adopted on 4 May 2021, that annex makes each colour a third of the flag and gives the shades as Pantone 280 C blue, 116 C yellow and 186 C red.