The Kingdom of Belgium

The Flag of Belgium
Vlag van België
Drapeau de la Belgique

The national flag of Belgium is unusual in that the official ratio of the flag is 13:15, making it very nearly square. However, it is more common to see a more clearly rectangular flag, at a ratio of 2:3.

The colours of red, yellow and black are the historic colours of Brabant, red from the red lion of Hainaut, Luxembourg and Limburg, yellow from the lion of Brabant, and black from the lion of Flanders and Lemur.

In 1830, Belgium finally rose against its Austrian rulers, and the Revolution began, the independence movement began to use the French tricolore, however, it was very quickly replaced with a horizontal tricolour flag using red, yellow and black. As a result, Article 193 in the Constitution of Belgium declares these to be the national colours of Belgium.

On January 23, 1831, the flag was re-orientated. The bands where now placed vertically.And in October, the colours where realigned to the flag we see today. It has been suggested that the change in the flag was to differentiate the flag from that of the flag of the Netherlands, and proving very useful in Naval battles.

There is another line of thinking that it was re-orientated as a gesture of sympathy to the French, who had supported their cause of independence, as well as moving Belgium away from the Netherlands.

It is interesting to note, that whilst the Belgian flag looks like it share the same colours as the flag of Germany, the yellow in the Belgian flag is a much lighter shade. The German flag actually uses a darker "gold!"