Flag of Luxembourg

What the flag of Luxembourg looks like

The flag of Luxembourg has three horizontal stripes of equal height: red at the top, white in the middle and light blue at the bottom. The proportions are 3:5, which makes it longer than the Dutch flag, whose ratio is 2:3. The blue is described as sky blue or light blue, and it is clearly paler than the dark blue used in the Netherlands.

There is no emblem on the national flag. When the flag is used by the Grand Ducal family or the state in some official settings, the coat of arms is added. For everyday use, the plain tricolor is flown, and it is shown in small form in the Luxembourg flag emoji.

Luxembourg flag meaning and symbolism

The colors are taken from the coat of arms of the Grand Duchy, which in turn comes from the arms of the medieval counts of Luxembourg. That shield shows a red lion with a forked tail and a gold crown on a field of ten horizontal stripes of white and blue. Red, white and blue are the colors of the lion and the stripes. Beyond heraldry, the colors are sometimes given general meanings, such as red for courage, white for purity and blue for the sky, but these are modern readings rather than official ones.

History of the Luxembourg flag

Luxembourg was a county, then a duchy, within the Holy Roman Empire, and later passed through Burgundian, Spanish, French and Austrian rule. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 it became a Grand Duchy, and its ruler was the King of the Netherlands, William I, who held the title of Grand Duke. The Dutch connection is one reason why the flags look alike. After the Belgian Revolution of 1830, its western part went to Belgium under a settlement of 1839, and the rest became fully independent, with the Dutch king as Grand Duke until 1890.

The red, white and blue tricolor has been used in Luxembourg since the middle of the 19th century and was widely adopted as a national symbol. During the Second World War, German occupation from 1940 to 1944 suppressed the national flag. The government in exile kept it as a symbol of resistance. The flag was given a legal definition by a law of 23 June 1972, which set out the shade of blue and the proportions and confirmed the tricolor as the national flag.

Luxembourg flag vs Dutch flag

The two flags use the same color order, but the details are different. The Netherlands flag has a ratio of 2:3, a vivid red and a dark cobalt blue, and the Luxembourg flag has a ratio of 3:5, a lighter red and a sky blue. The Dutch flag was originally orange, white and blue, and the orange was replaced by red in the 17th century. The Luxembourg tricolor has its own heraldic origin, even though it is close in appearance.

Luxembourg also has a second flag, the Roude Léiw (Red Lion). It shows the red lion of the national arms on ten blue and white stripes, and it is used as the civil ensign on land and at sea, and widely unofficially, such as at sports events. It is not the main national flag, which is the plain tricolor.