Croatia Flag

Croatia is located in southeastern Europe between Slovenia, Herzegovina, and Bosnia bordering the Adriatic Sea. The capital of Croatia is Zagreb, which is also the largest city. Their official language is Croatian.

The Croatia national flag is a tricolor, horizontal striped flag with three equal size stripes of red, white, and blue. At the top of the Croatian flag is the red strip, the middle of the Croatia flag has a white stripe, and a blue stripe is across the bottom. Centered in the middle of the flag of Croatia is the Croatian coat of arms. Croatia’s coat of arms is comprised of five small shields and one main shield. There are twelve white fields and thirteen red fields on the main coat of arms and they are in a checkerboard pattern. The five smaller shields above the checkerboard shield stand for each of the five geographical regions of Croatia.

According to the history of Croatian flag, they inherited the colors on the Croatian flag from their coat of arms. Although unofficial, many believe that the three colors on the flag of Croatia symbolize the history and people of Croatia. The Croatian flag meaning of the red stripe symbolizes Croatian martyr’s blood while the white stripe on the Croatian flag represents their lamb-like peaceful nature. The blue on the flag of Croatia stands for the people’s devotion to God. The main checkerboard or chequy coat of arms on the Croatian flag is made of twelve white fields and thirteen red fields. Since the tenth century or maybe even earlier, the checkerboard symbol has represented Croatian kings. The five smaller crowning coats of arms symbolize the Croatia historical regions where the Croatian’s originated from.

Since 1848, Croatia has used the pan-Slavic red, white, and blue tricolors as their flag of Croatia. When Croatia was part of Yugoslavia, they had the flag of the socialist republic of Croatia from 1947 until 1990. This Croatian flag had the same horizontal tricolor, with a red stripe, white stripe, and blue stripe. Centered in the middle of the flag was a large red five-pointed star with a border of yellow instead of the Croatian coat of arms. In May of 1990, the Croatian coat of arms replaced this star on the flag of Croatia, right after the Croatian multi-party elections. On December 21, 1990, Croatia formally adopted the new Croatia national flag bearing its coat of arms. This happened almost a year before Croatia announced its independence from Yugoslavia.