Flag of the Netherlands
national flag of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
The national flag of the Netherlands (Dutch: de Nederlandse vlag) is a horizontal tricolour of red, white, and blue. The current design originates as a variant of the late 16th century orange-white-blue Prinsenvlag ("Prince's Flag"), evolving in the early 17th century as the red-white-blue Statenvlag ("States Flag"), the naval flag of the States-General of the Dutch Republic, making the Dutch flag the oldest tricolour flag in continuous use. As a flag that symbolises the transformation from monarchy to republic, it has inspired both the derivative Russian flag, and after the French Revolution in 1789, the vertically striped French tricolour; both flags in turn influenced many other tricolours.
During the 1920s and the economic crisis of the 1930s, the old Prince's Flag with the colour orange gained some popularity among Protestants, Orangists, conservative liberals, fascists, and others. To end the confusion, the colours red, white and blue and its official status as the national flag of the Kingdom of the Netherlands were reaffirmed by royal decree on 19 February 1937.
Description
The national flag of the Netherlands is a tricolour flag. The horizontal fesses are bands of equal size in the colours from top to bottom, red (officially described as a "bright vermilion"), white (silver), and blue ("cobalt blue"). The flag proportions (width:length) are 2:3. The colour parameters were defined in November 1958 by the NEN (former HCNN) in as the following:
In this definition, the colours are defined using CIE-1931 colour space and Standard illuminant C at a 45° angle.
The flag of the Netherlands is similar to that of Luxembourg, but it has a smaller width and it uses slightly darker shades of red and blue.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Flag of the Netherlands” is national flag of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Flag, Netherlands and national, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q46585. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1789, 1937, 1958 and 1931.
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This entry incorporates text from “Flag of the Netherlands” 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.