Flag of Vatican City

What the flag of Vatican City looks like

The flag of Vatican City is divided into two equal vertical halves: yellow at the hoist and white at the fly. In the white half is the coat of arms of the Holy See, a triple crown (the papal tiara) above two crossed keys. One key is gold and the other silver, and they are tied together with a red cord. The emblem is placed in the center of the white half only.

The flag is a perfect square, with a ratio of 1:1. Only two national flags are square: this one and the flag of Switzerland. It is also the only national flag with a pope's tiara. The Vatican City flag emoji shows the same layout in a small, simplified form. Italy surrounds Vatican City entirely, so it is an enclave inside Rome.

Vatican flag meaning and symbolism

The two colors come from the keys. Gold and silver (yellow and white on a flag) are the colors of the keys of Saint Peter. They refer to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, who gave Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the power to bind and loose. Tradition says the gold key stands for spiritual authority and the silver key for earthly authority, and the cord joins the two.

The tiara, a triple crown, is a long-standing symbol of the pope's office and is sometimes read as the pope's three roles as teacher, priest and ruler. Together, the keys and tiara make up the main symbol of the papacy. The flag is therefore a religious symbol as well as a state flag.

History of the Vatican flag

Yellow and white were the colors of the Papal States, the territories ruled by the popes in central Italy until 1870. They were in use as flag colors by the early 19th century. After the Papal States were taken over by the Kingdom of Italy, the popes had no territory for almost sixty years.

That ended with the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy in February 1929, which created the independent Vatican City State. The Fundamental Law of the State, issued in June 1929, set out the design of the flag, with the coat of arms in the white half. The date of adoption is 7 June 1929. The flag has not changed since, apart from small differences in how the emblem is drawn.

The Vatican flag is frequently depicted incorrectly, with the keys reversed or the emblem placed wrongly, and this has been a common complaint. The correct version is the one defined in the Vatican's Fundamental Law.