Flag of Amsterdam
municipal flag of Amsterdam, Netherlands
The current city flag of Amsterdam depicts three Saint Andrew's Crosses and is based on the escutcheon in the coat of arms of Amsterdam. The flag is very similar to the flag of Amstelveen.
Meaning
The colours of the flag are derived primarily from the shield of Amsterdam's coat of arms. According to the city government, its origin could go back to the coat of arms of the Persijn family, which once owned a large tract of land in the capital. These colours, as well as the crosses, are to be seen in the flags of both Ouder-Amstel and Amstelveen.
The popular legend that the three Saint Andrew's crosses were meant to ward off fire, floods and the black plague is unfounded as the use of three St. Andrews crosses by noble families in the area precedes the arrival of the Black Death in Europe.
In the coats of arms of two other Dutch cities, Dordrecht and Delft, the middle stripe symbolises water. Regarding Amsterdam, this black strip becomes the River Amstel. This could be why other references state that the three crosses represent three fordable places in the river Amstel.
“Flag of Amsterdam” enters the record as municipal flag of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Flag, Amsterdam and municipal can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1426379. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Flag of Amsterdam” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.