Western Europe Flags

​Western Europe is made up of a variety of different countries, many with interlocking history over hundreds of years. The flags that these countries choose to represent themselves therefore have a lot of meaning, and even something as simple as the colors displayed can have great meaning. For example;

Ireland: The Irish tricolour is made up of three colors: green at the hoist, white in the center and orange as the final bar. While the country's constitution doesn't give an explanation of the flag, the meaning is generally interpreted as green being the Gaelic tradition, the orange being the followers of William of Orange, and the white in the center standing for peace.

France: The French tricolour is made up of blue at the hoist side, a center panel of white, and red as the final bar. This flag has been in use since the 1700s, and it is represented by the blue and red that were the traditional uniform colors of the national guard, with white added as one of the other traditional colors of France.

Norway: Norway's flag is a blue Scandinavian cross outlined in white on a red background. Easily identifiable, the cross is meant to identify Norway's link to the rest of Scandinavia, with the pattern and colors influenced historically by France, England and the United States.

Germany: Germany has had many flags over the years, and the current flag is the post WWII flag. It is a horizontal tricolour with black, red and gold bands beginning from top to bottom. While there is no set history of this flag, the colors have been used in many flags throughout Germany's history.

Greece: The Greek flag looks similar to the United States flag, with nine bars of alternating blue and white (the top and bottom bars are always blue), and in the upper left hand corner there is a box with a white cross on a blue background. It's said that the nine bars represent the syllables for the Greek battle cry, which translated to "Freedom or Death" when they were fighting the Ottoman Empire for independence.