Bulgaria Flag

Bulgaria is located in southeastern Europe between Turkey and Romania and bordering the Black Sea. Bulgaria’s capital city is Sofia, which is also its largest city.

The national flag of Bulgaria is a tricolor flag, which means the flag has three colors either vertically or horizontally. Usually the three colors on the flag are equal in size as is the case of the Bulgaria flag. The three horizontal bands of color on the Bulgarian flag are white on the top stripe, green on the middle stripe, and red on the bottom stripe. As with most flags, each of the colors on the flag of Bulgaria has a special meaning. The white stripe at the top of the Bulgaria flag signifies peace. The green stripe across the middle of the Bulgarian flag signifies Bulgaria’s fertile lands and red at the bottom of the national flag of Bulgaria represents the courage of Bulgaria’s people.

Some earlier versions of the Bulgarian flag used the Pan-Slavic colors derived from the nineteenth century Europe pan-Slavism. They used Pan-Slavic colors, which were blue, white, and red, on some Slavic states where most of the inhabitants were of Slavic heritage. The central band on this Bulgarian flag was blue which made it very similar to Russia’s flag. It was not until 1878 after the liberation of Bulgaria, that they replaced blue band in the middle of the flag of Bulgaria with green, which represented agriculture and Bulgaria’s development of this as a country. In 1885, the Ottoman province joined Bulgaria but this was short-lived. Their flag was the flag of Eastern Rumelia and this flag had the Pan-Slavic colors of blue, white, and red.

After 1989, they removed the former emblem that was on the white stripe on the left-hand side. This former emblem was a lion rampant encircled in a wreath made of wheatears. It had a five-pointed red star below the lion and a ribbon with the years 681 and 1944 printed on it. Six hundred and eighty one stood for the year they established the Bulgarian state and nineteen forty-four was the year that the Bulgarian communist party took over power.

Another flag is the Commander in Chief of the Navy Bulgarian flag. A small naval ensign is in the top right corner on a red field. A white line fimbriates this from the red canton or field. A white anchor is set in each of the three remaining quarters.