Flag of Poland Totally Explained

Everything about Polish Flag totally explained

   The flag of Poland consists of two horizontal stripes of equal width, the upper one white and the lower one red. The two colors are defined in the Polish constitution as the national colors. A variant of the flag with the national coat of arms in the middle of the white stripe is legally reserved for official use abroad and at sea. A similar flag with the addition of a swallow-tail is used as the naval ensign of Poland.
   White and red were officially adopted as national colors in 1831. They are of heraldic origin and derive from the tinctures (colors) of the coats of arms of the two constituent nations of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, for example the White Eagle of Poland and the Pursuer (Vytis, Pogoń) of Lithuania, a white knight riding a white horse, both on a red shield. Prior to that, Polish soldiers wore cockades of various color combinations. The national flag was officially adopted in 1919. Since 2004, Polish Flag Day has been celebrated on May 2.
   The flag is flown continuously on the buildings of the highest national authorities, such as the parliament and the president. Other institutions and many Polish people fly the national flag on national holidays and other special occasions of national significance. Current Polish law doesn't restrict the use of the national flag without the coat of arms as long as the flag isn't disrespected.
   Horizontal bicolor of white and red being a relatively widespread design, there are several flags that are similar but unrelated to the Polish one, most notably that of Bohemia in the Czech Republic and two national flags the red stripe above the white one: those of Indonesia and Monaco. In Poland, many flags based on the national design also feature the national colors.

Design

Legal sources

The colors and flags of the Republic of Poland are described in two legal documents: the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997, and the Coat of Arms, Colors and Anthem of the Republic of Poland, and State Seals Act (Ustawa o godle, barwach i hymnie Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej oraz o pieczęciach państwowych) of 1980 with subsequent amendments (henceforth referred to as "the Coat of Arms Act").
Legislation concerning the national symbols is far from perfect. The Coat of Arms Act has been amended several times and refers extensively to executive ordinances, some of which have never been issued. Moreover, the Act contains errors, omissions and inconsistencies which make the law confusing, open to various interpretations and often not followed in practice.

National colors

Statutory coördinates of Polish national colors in the CIE xyY color space with the tolerated color differences in the CIELUV color space>

x	y	Y	ΔE
	White	0.315	0.320	82.0	4.0
	Red	0.570	0.305	16.0	8.0
Illuminant C, measurement geometry d/0

According to Chapter I, Article 28, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, the national colors of Poland are white and red.

Usage

Respect for the flag

Polish law says that treating the national symbols, including the flag, "with reverence and respect" is the "right and obligation" of every Polish citizen and all state organs, institutions and organizations. Official statistics show that crimes against national symbols are rare: 43 such crimes in 2003 and 96 in 2004 were less than 0.001% of all crimes registered in Poland in those years.

Flag without coat of arms

Organs that are required by law to fly the national flag without coat of arms on or in front of their official buildings are:

the Sejm (lower house of parliament);

the Senate (upper house of parliament);

the President of the Republic;

the Council of Ministers (cabinet) and the President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister);

local legislatures – only during their sessions;

other state and local government organs – only on national holidays. Additionally, the national flag without coat of arms is used as an ensign for inland navigation.

Flag flying days

State and local government organs are legally required, and other institutions and organizations as well as all citizens are encouraged to fly the Polish flag on the following days:

May 1 – State Holiday (May Day, formerly Labor Day);

May 2 – Polish Flag Day;

May 3 – Constitution Day;

November 11 – Independence Day. There was also a historical reason: under the Communist regime, May 2 was a day when national flags, hoisted for Labor Day on May 1 where being quickly removed before the Constitution Day which was banned by the authorities. Since the re-introduction of the Constitution Day in 1990 and establishment of the Polish Flag Day, the flag is flown continuously during the first three days of May. Unlike May Day and Constitution Day, the Flag Day isn't a public holiday, although making a bridge, for example taking a day off on that day is common practice (see Holidays in Poland).
Other days when the Polish flag is often flown on official buildings include:

May 5 and May 9 – Europe Days (together with the European flag);

August 15 – Polish Armed Forces Day (mostly on military premises and at tombs of the Unknown Soldier)

September 27 – Polish Underground State Day. and during an official visit of a particularly important person, especially a pope, in Poland. During a pope's visit, the national flag is usually flown together with yellow and white Church flags, and white and blue Marian flags. It isn't common to fly the national flag on personal occasions, such as birthdays or weddings.
In the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795), a banner of the Commonwealth was also used, combining the heraldic symbols of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Commonwealth banner was initially plain white emblazoned with the arms of the Commonwealth which consisted of the heraldic charges of Poland (White Eagle) and Lithuania (Pursuer). Since both Polish and Lithuanian coats of arms consisted of white (Argent) charges in a red (Gules) field, these two colors started to be used for the entire banner. During the 17th century, the banner was usually divided into two, three or four horizontal, often swallow-tailed, stripes of red and white.

National cockade

In the 18th and 19th centuries, European nations used cockades, or knots of colored ribbons pinned to the hat, to denote the nationality of their military. In Poland, until 1831, there was no consensus as to what the colors of the national cockade should be. Polish soldiers wore white, white-and-red, blue-and-red or blue-white-red cockades.
20th-century Polish insurgents wore white-and-red brassards (armbands) which played a role similar to the cockade of the previous centuries. Such armbands were worn by Polish freedom fighters during the Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919) and Silesian Uprisings (1919–1921), as well as during the Second World War (1939–1945) by the soldiers of the Home Army (AK) and Peasants' Battalions (BCh) – usually emblazoned with the acronyms of their formations. The pamphlet was not, however, an official source of law and was published for informative purpose only. The shade of red was first legally specified by a presidential decree of 13 December 1927 which stipulated that the official shade was vermillion. This specification was upheld by a decree of 7 December 1955. bringing the resulting hue closer to crimson again.

Related and similar flags

Examples of related flags>

The flag of the Grand Duchy of Posen, a Polish-populated autonomous province of the Kingdom of Prussia created in 1815, was a red-and-white horizontal bicolor. Its colors were taken from the duchy's coat of arms which consisted of the Prussian Black Eagle with an inescutcheon of the Polish White Eagle. With Germany's increasingly anti-Polish policy and a rising identification of white and red as Polish national colors, the red-and-white flag of Posen was replaced in 1886 with a white-black-white horizontal triband. No other part of Poland during the time of Partitions used a flag that would incorporate Polish national colors.
Today, many flags used in Poland are based on the design of the national flag. This applies especially to flags defined by Polish law and used by the Polish military and other uniformed services, such as the naval ensign – a swallow-tailed horizontal bicolor of white and red defaced with the arms of Poland in the white stripe. Flags of some administrative subdivisions also resemble the national flag. Examples include the flag of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship – a horizontal bicolor of white and red defaced with the arms of the voivodeship – or the flag of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship – a horizontal tricolor of white, yellow and red with the yellow stripe half as wide as any of the other two. Examples of unrelated but similar flags>

Due to the horizontal bicolor being a relatively simple and widespread flag design, and white and red being the most popular colors used on flags, there are many flags worldwide that are similar or near identical to the flag of Poland despite being unrelated to it. For example, the little used flag of Bohemia, the major historical region of Poland's southern neighbor, the Czech Republic, consists of two horizontal stripes, white on top and red on bottom. Similarly to the flag of Poland, it's of heraldic origin, the coat of arms of Bohemia being Gules, a lion rampant, queue fourchée Argent, crowned, langued and armed Or, that's a silver double-tailed lion in a red field. The white-and-red Bohemian flag came into use when Bohemia was a province of Austria-Hungary and, after the end of the First World War in 1918, it was shortly used as a flag of the newly formed Czecho-Slovak Republic. In 1920, in order to avoid confusion with the Polish flag, a blue triangle was added to create a flag used by Czechoslovakia until its dissolution in 1993 and currently used as the flag of the Czech Republic.
Other examples of flags that could be confused with the Polish one include the civil flags of the following regions: Kranj, Slovenia; Thuringia, Germany; Upper Austria and Tyrol, Austria; as well the city of Honda, Colombia. There are currently two independent states – Indonesia and Monaco – whose national flags are horizontal bicolors of red and white, reversing the Polish flag. The Monaco and Indonesia flags differ in proportions and shades of the colors (see Flag of Indonesia and Flag of Monaco).

Further Information

Get more info on 'Polish Flag'.

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