Flag of the Netherlands

What the flag of the Netherlands looks like

The flag of the Netherlands has three horizontal stripes of equal height: red at the top, white in the middle and blue at the bottom. The proportions are 2:3. A royal decree of 1937 set the red as a bright vermilion and the blue as a cobalt blue, rather than a darker shade.

There is no emblem, and the design is the same on land and at sea, which makes it a plain tricolor. The simplicity is the reason it is often confused with other red, white and blue flags. In English it is called both the Dutch flag and the Netherlands flag, and "Holland flag" is a common informal name for the same flag.

See the standard version as the Netherlands flag emoji, or get a copy from the download page.

Dutch flag colors and meaning

The colors have no single official meaning. They originated as the livery of William of Orange (Willem van Oranje), the leader of the Dutch Revolt against Spain in the 16th century, whose colors were orange, white and blue. In popular readings, red is linked to courage and bravery, white to peace and faith, and blue to loyalty and vigilance, but these explanations were added later.

Orange is still important in Dutch national symbolism. The royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau, takes its name from the principality of Orange, and the color appears on the national football team's shirts and at festivals such as King's Day (27 April). On those days and at royal occasions, people often fly an orange pennant above the flag.

History of the Dutch flag

The ancestor of the Dutch flag is the Prince's Flag (Prinsenvlag), an orange-white-blue horizontal tricolor used from about 1572 by the rebels fighting Spanish rule under William of Orange. It was based on his coat of arms and his livery. The flag spread through the Dutch Republic and was carried by the ships of the Dutch East India Company.

In the course of the 17th century, the orange stripe was gradually replaced by red. The most common explanation is that orange dye faded quickly in sunlight and salt water and looked red or yellowish, so red was a more reliable color. Red was also easier to see at sea. By the mid-17th century, the red, white and blue Statenvlag (States flag) was the standard for the Republic, though the orange version continued to be used by supporters of the House of Orange.

The tricolor was kept by the Batavian Republic (1795-1806) under French influence, with the addition of the Dutch Maiden and other emblems on some versions. Under Napoleon's brother Louis, the Kingdom of Holland used a similar flag. When the Netherlands regained independence in 1813, the tricolor came back, and it has been used since then.

The flag was formally fixed on 19 February 1937 by a royal decree of Queen Wilhelmina, which established red (not orange) as the official color of the top stripe and specified the shades. It was meant to end a long debate on whether orange should return.

Flags that look like the Dutch flag

The Dutch flag is often confused with several others:

• Luxembourg has the same stripe order, but a lighter sky blue and a longer ratio of 3:5.
• France uses the same three colors in vertical stripes, in the order blue, white and red. The Dutch tricolor is older, and the French one came with the Revolution in 1789.
• Russia has white, blue and red horizontal stripes. The Russian flag is said to have been inspired by the Dutch one during the time of Peter the Great.
• Paraguay has red, white and blue stripes with an emblem in the center.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands also includes Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, which each have their own flags. The Dutch tricolor is the flag of the European Netherlands and also flies over the Caribbean municipalities of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, which have their own local flags too.