Country
Hungary flew the banners of its grand princes and the standards of its kings for centuries before the red, white and green became its national flag by Article XXI of the April Laws of 1848. The emblem in the centre of the tricolour changed many times until 1957, when the plain flag became official. The arms join the Árpád stripes, first seen on a seal of 1202, and the double cross of royal power, with the Holy Crown, restored to the arms in 1990.
Coat of Arms
Not available
| Flag | Three equal horizontal stripes of red, white and green |
|---|---|
| National colours | Made official by Article XXI of the April Laws of 1848 |
| Present form | Official since 23 May 1957; reaffirmed on 19 June 1990 |
| Proportions | 1:2 for the state flag (government decree of 2000); 2:3 at sea (law of 1957) |
| Arms | The Árpád stripes impaled with the double cross on a trimount, under the Holy Crown |
| Arms adopted | Act XLIV of 1990 |
| Day of the flag and arms | 16 March |
The Hungarian state is older than its tricolour: before 1848 its flags were the banners of the grand princes and the standards of the kings, from the red banner of the Turul to the Árpád stripes and the arms of each dynasty. The red, white and green, long present on seals and at coronations, became the national flag in 1848, and the emblem in its centre changed many times until 1957. These are the stages. Wikimedia Commons notes that the flag of 895 is unreferenced.
Click the thumbnails to go through the flags.
895
Flag of the Grand Principality of Hungary, from its founding until the reign of István I, according to Wikimedia Commons.
According to the medieval Hungarian chronicles, the early Hungarian warriors fought under red banners bearing a black Turul, a mythological bird linked to the origin legends of the Hungarians. Kézai Simon writes in his Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum that the arms of King Attila, borne on his own shield (his banner, in the English translation), showed the bird the Hungarians call Turul, with a crown on its head, and that this emblem was carried with the army until the time of the grand prince Géza. The ruling Árpád dynasty is also called the Turul dynasty. Wikimedia Commons notes that this flag is unreferenced, based on an image from a website whose link is now dead.
1000
Flag of István I, the first king of Hungary (r. 1000–1038), according to Wikimedia Commons.
Under Géza’s son, King István I, Saint Stephen, the Christian Kingdom of Hungary was established in 1000. The early war banners were later replaced by flags embroidered with images of Christian saints: István is said to have gone into battle “under the banner of Saint George and Saint Martin”. The Illuminated Chronicle of 1358 shows him holding a flag and a shield, both bearing the double cross.
11th c.
Royal standard of the Kingdom of Hungary from the mid-11th to the late 12th century, according to Wikimedia Commons.
Hungarian Wikipedia describes this flag as the royal flag of the House of Árpád from the second half of the 11th century; Wikimedia Commons dates it from the middle of the 11th century to the late 12th century.
1172
Royal standard of the Kingdom of Hungary in the late 12th century, according to Wikimedia Commons.
English Wikipedia describes this flag as the royal standard under Béla III (1172–1196). Béla, the second son of Géza II, arrived in Constantinople in 1163, was raised at the court of the emperor Manuel I and was for a time heir to the Byzantine throne. According to English Wikipedia, he brought the double cross with him as a royal emblem, which appeared for the first time on his coat of arms and on the coins he struck; Hungarian Wikipedia dates these coins otherwise (see the coat of arms below).
13th c.
Royal standard of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 13th century.
English Wikipedia describes this flag as the royal standard of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 13th century, and Hungarian Wikipedia as the royal flag of the House of Árpád in the 13th century. On the coins and seals of Béla IV (1235–1270) the double-cross shield appears again.
Árpád
The red and silver stripes of the House of Árpád.
In the later medieval period the flag of the royal House of Árpád, the red and silver striped flag known as the Árpád stripes, became increasingly common. Wikimedia Commons describes this image as a war flag flown by the Árpád kings in the 11th to 13th centuries, and refers to a 14th-century depiction of Béla III; English Wikipedia shows him holding a red and white striped flag in the Illuminated Chronicle of 1358. A Hungarian flag from the first half of the 14th century survives from Königsfelden Abbey, the monastery of Ágnes, widow of King András III.
1301
Flag of Hungary from 1301 to 1382, according to Wikimedia Commons.
After the male line of the Árpád dynasty died out in 1301, the Angevin kings, Károly I (1308–1342) and Lajos I (1342–1382), combined the striped shield of the Árpáds with their own arms of lilies, to stress their descent from the Árpád dynasty through the female line. English Wikipedia describes this flag as the royal standard of the Kingdom of Hungary under the Angevin dynasty from 1301 to 1382.
1387
Royal standard of Zsigmond of Luxembourg.
English Wikipedia describes this flag as the royal standard of Hungary under Zsigmond of Luxembourg, king from 1387 to 1437.
1440
Royal standard of Ulászló I.
English Wikipedia describes this flag as the royal standard of Hungary under Ulászló I (1440–1444). According to English Wikipedia, the combination of the Árpád stripes and the double cross on the trimount side by side in one shield first appeared on coins during his reign, as did the crown above the arms, although English Wikipedia marks the first point as unsourced.
1458
One of the flags used by Mátyás I, according to Wikimedia Commons.
English Wikipedia shows two royal standards of Hungary under Mátyás I, Mátyás Hunyadi (1458–1490); Wikimedia Commons describes this one as one of the flags he used.
1490
Royal standard of Ulászló II.
English Wikipedia describes this flag as the royal standard of Hungary under Ulászló II (1490–1516).
1516
Royal standard attributed to Lajos II.
English Wikipedia describes this flag as the royal standard attributed to Lajos II (1516–1526); Wikimedia Commons calls it his alleged flag.
18th c.
The black and yellow of the House of Habsburg.
English Wikipedia uses this flag for the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Habsburg monarchy and the Austrian Empire from the 18th century to 1848, and again from 1848 to 1867; Wikimedia Commons describes the black and yellow as the house colours of the Habsburgs. The red, white and green were not yet the national flag; according to Hungarian Wikipedia a tricolour flag existed before 1848 but was not yet widespread. According to the Pallas encyclopaedia quoted by Hungarian Wikipedia, the seal of a charter of András II dated 1222 hangs on a red, white and green silk cord. Hungarian Wikipedia says the three colours appeared together for the first time at a royal coronation, that of Mátyás II in Pozsony in 1608 (English Wikipedia notes there is no evidence for this), that Mária Terézia had regimental flags made of these colours in 1743, and that the walls were draped in them at the coronation of Lipót II in 1790; English Wikipedia says the order of the colours known today was formally described only in 1806.
1848
Flag of Hungary, 1848 to 1849 and 1867 to 1869, according to Wikimedia Commons.
Restoring the national colours to their ancient rights, against the black and yellow of the Habsburgs, was one of the demands of 1848. Article XXI of the April Laws of 1848 decreed: “A’ nemzeti szín és ország czímere ősi jogaiba visszaállíttatik”, the national colour and the arms of the country are restored to their ancient rights, and the national flag and the arms were to be used on all public holidays and on all Hungarian ships. According to Hungarian Wikipedia, green was taken up as the third colour of the flag, beside red and white, on the suggestion of Alexandra Pavlovna, first wife of the palatine József, and the tricolour form also alluded to the French Revolution. The Honvéd army of 1848–49 fought instead under white flags bordered with red and green “wolf’s teeth”, with the arms in the centre. Wikimedia Commons dates this state flag from 11 April 1848 to April 1849, and again from 28 July 1867 to 1869.
1849
The tricolour with the great coat of arms of 1849.
According to English Wikipedia, after the dethronement of the Habsburg dynasty on 14 April 1849 the Holy Crown was removed from the coat of arms, and in the great arms a laurel wreath replaced the crown; Hungarian Wikipedia says it disappeared only from some depictions. Hungarian Wikipedia quotes Lajos Kossuth’s decree that all titles, inscriptions and signs connected with the exiled dynasty were to be abolished and removed from public places. It also notes that no document signed by Kossuth ordering the removal of the crown has been found, and that Ferenc József had already reduced Hungary to a province by the Olmütz constitution of 4 March 1849. After the defeat of the revolution, the tricolour was a forbidden symbol.
1869
The tricolour with the small coat of arms of Hungary.
After the Compromise of 1867 the tricolour became not only legal but the official flag of Hungary. English Wikipedia describes this version as the flag of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1869 to 1874, with the Hungarian small coat of arms; Wikimedia Commons dates it from 1869 to 9 February 1874.
1869
Civil and merchant marine ensign of Austria-Hungary, 1869 to 1918, according to Wikimedia Commons.
According to English Wikipedia, Austria-Hungary (1867–1918) did not have a commonly used universal flag: a single national flag could not exist, since the Dual Monarchy consisted of two nations brought together by the Compromise of 1867, and the only official symbol of Austria-Hungary in common use was the coat of arms. At state functions the black-gold flag of Austria and the red-white-green tricolour of Hungary were often used to represent the two parts of the empire. The merchant navy used a red-white-red civil ensign until 1869, when a new “double” civil ensign was introduced, its lower stripe divided between a red left half and a green right half, with the Austrian and Hungarian coats of arms side by side. It was also used as the consular flag, as decreed on 18 February 1869, and came into use on 1 August 1869.
1874
Flag of Hungary, 1874 to 1896, according to Wikimedia Commons.
Wikimedia Commons dates this flag from 9 February 1874 to 12 January 1896. After the Croatian-Hungarian settlement of 1868, the united arms of Hungary, Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia were created; Hungarian Wikipedia says in one place that the arms were extended with the emblem of Fiume in 1874, and in another that the arms of Fiume appear from 1890.
1896
Flag of Hungary, 1896 to 1915, according to Wikimedia Commons.
Wikimedia Commons dates this flag from 12 January 1896 to 6 November 1915. The small coat of arms always remained the central piece of the more complex arms of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen, which included the arms of Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, Transylvania and Fiume.
1915
Flag of Hungary, 1915 to 1918 and 1919 to 1946, according to Wikimedia Commons.
In 1915 the arms of Bosnia were added to the medium arms. Wikimedia Commons dates this flag from 6 November 1915 to 29 November 1918, and again from August 1919 until mid or late 1946. English Wikipedia says that from 1920 to 1944–1945 the tricolour seems to have displayed the small arms of Hungary, but that the version without them was also used.
1918
Flag of Hungary, 1918 to 1919, according to Wikimedia Commons.
After the First World War, the first Hungarian republic introduced arms almost identical to the small arms, but with the monarchist elements removed. Hungarian Wikipedia says that Mihály Károlyi, as president, made the Kossuth arms official from November 1918. Wikimedia Commons dates this flag from 29 November 1918 to 21 March 1919, and from 2 to 8 August 1919.
1919
A plain red flag.
The Hungarian Republic of Councils of 1919, which lasted four and a half months, used a plain red banner. According to English Wikipedia it abolished the traditional arms and used the communist five-pointed red star on official documents; according to Hungarian Wikipedia the Kossuth arms remained the official state arms, while some bodies used the five-pointed star on their seals. Wikimedia Commons dates this flag from 21 March to 1 August 1919.
1946
The tricolour with the Kossuth arms.
From 1946 the Kossuth arms, without the Holy Crown, were again the arms of the Hungarian state. Hungarian Wikipedia dates this flag from 1 February 1946 to 20 August 1949; Wikimedia Commons from mid or late 1946 to 20 August 1949, and again from 12 November 1956 to 23 May 1957.
1949
The tricolour with the emblem of the People’s Republic.
In 1949 the Hungarian People’s Republic introduced a new emblem on the Soviet model, known as the Rákosi arms, and placed it on the flag. Wikimedia Commons dates this flag from 20 August 1949 to 12 November 1956; Hungarian Wikipedia says the emblem was in the centre of the flag until October 1956.
1956
The tricolour with a hole in the centre.
During the revolution of 1956 the insurgents and much of the population cut the communist emblem out of the flag, and the tricolour with a hole in the middle became the symbol of the revolution. The government of Imre Nagy restored the Kossuth arms without the crown, which remained official for a few months after the revolution was crushed.
1957
Three equal horizontal stripes of red, white and green.
The new emblem created after the revolution, the Kádár arms, was never put on the flag, and in this exact form the plain tricolour has been the official flag of Hungary since 23 May 1957. After the fall of communism there was no need to change it: Act XL of 1990, passed on 19 June, kept the three equal horizontal stripes of red, white and green.
The elements of the arms date from the Middle Ages: the double cross of royal power, the red and silver stripes of the Árpád dynasty, the triple hill and the crown. According to Hungarian Wikipedia they took their present form, with the Holy Crown on top of the shield, at the beginning of the 16th century, and from the 15th century the arms of the ruler began to be regarded as the arms of the country. These are the stages.
Click the thumbnails to go through the coats of arms.
1172
The double cross, symbol of royal power.
The double cross, a symbol of royal power, appeared under Béla III (1172–1196), who brought it from the Byzantine court, first on his coat of arms and his coins. Hungarian Wikipedia adds that, according to the latest numismatic research, these coins belong not to Béla III but to the first years of Béla IV, before the Mongol invasion, so that the first known arms of the Árpáds may have been the striped shield.
1202
The red and white stripes of the House of Árpád, with nine lions.
The striped arms of the Árpád dynasty first appeared on the ornate seal of King Imre (1196–1204), issued in 1202, which shows nine lions; on the Golden Bull of 1222 of András II the stripes carry seven lions. The first coloured depiction of the striped arms is in the Zurich armorial roll, which both Wikipedias date to the 1320s in their text and to about 1340 in an image caption. The Árpád arms were used only for a short time in the 13th century.
1310
The Árpád stripes impaled with the lilies of Anjou.
When the Árpád dynasty died out and the Angevins came to power, they used the Árpád stripes to stress their legitimacy and their descent from the previous royal house through the female line. Károly I combined them per pale with the Angevin fleurs-de-lis. The place of the stripes was not yet fixed and they could appear on either side. On the reverse of their seal they engraved the double cross, which symbolised the country.
1464
The arms on the seal of Mátyás I, 1464, according to Hungarian Wikipedia.
The two arms were often shown side by side in the 15th century. Their combination per pale, with the stripes on the dexter and the cross on the trimount on the sinister, first appeared on coins under Ulászló I and later on those of Mátyás I; the crown above the arms was at first a simple diadem, but on the seal of Mátyás of 1464 it resembled the Holy Crown. According to Hungarian Wikipedia, a depiction with a single hill is still known from the 14th century, and it became the triple hill in the 15th, when the crown was also placed under the cross. The union of the two fields was completed under Rudolf (1576–1608) according to Hungarian Wikipedia, while English Wikipedia says the modern version of the arms developed under Mátyás II at the beginning of the 17th century.
1849
The arms without the Holy Crown; in the great arms, a laurel wreath replaces it.
According to English Wikipedia, after the dethronement of the Habsburg dynasty on 14 April 1849 the Holy Crown was removed from the arms; Hungarian Wikipedia says it disappeared only from some depictions in 1849, and that it was Ferenc József, not Kossuth, who did away with the historic arms. The remaining small arms are usually called the Kossuth arms, after Lajos Kossuth, regent-president of Hungary; in the great arms a laurel wreath replaced the crown, both in the centre and above the shield. Hungarian Wikipedia notes that most Honvéd flags of 1848 used the crowned arms. The Kossuth arms returned under the first republic in 1918, from 1946 to 1949, and during the revolution of 1956.
1896
The small arms of Hungary surrounded by the arms of the associated countries, supported by two angels.
After the Compromise of 1867 the small arms with the crown again became part of a more complex coat of arms. The medium arms showed the arms of Hungary in the centre, surrounded by those of Dalmatia, Slavonia, Fiume, Transylvania and Croatia, with Bosnia added in 1915. Wikimedia Commons dates this version, supported by angels, from 12 January 1896 to 6 November 1915. After the restoration of the kingdom, the small arms with the Holy Crown and two angels were official until the First Vienna Award of 1938, when the government started to use the arms of 1915 again.
1915
The medium arms of the two halves of the Dual Monarchy, with a griffin on the dexter side for Austria and an angel on the sinister side for Hungary as supporters, according to English Wikipedia.
According to English Wikipedia, the double-headed eagle of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine was used by the common Imperial and Royal (k. u. k.) institutions of the Dual Monarchy, while each of its two parts had its own coat of arms. As the eagle recalled the Reichsadler of the defunct Holy Roman Empire and was also the symbol of the Austrian half, the Hungarian government urged the introduction of a new common coat of arms, which took place in 1915, in the midst of the First World War. It combined the arms of the two halves, linked by the armorials of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty and the motto indivisibiliter ac inseparabiliter, “indivisible and inseparable” (oszthatatlan és elválaszthatatlan in Hungarian). Hungarian Wikipedia notes that the great arms of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were never completed. Wikimedia Commons describes the image as the medium imperial-royal coat of arms of Austria-Hungary, 1915 to 1918.
1949
An ear of wheat and a hammer in a blue field, in a wreath of wheat, under a red star.
In 1949 the Hungarian People’s Republic introduced a new state emblem on the Soviet model, known as the Rákosi arms. According to Hungarian Wikipedia, heraldically it could not be called a coat of arms, since it had no shield: an ear of wheat and a hammer, symbols of the peasantry and the working class, in a blue field framed by a wreath of wheat and lit by rays from the red star at the top; its national character showed only in the colours of the ribbon. Wikimedia Commons dates it from 20 August 1949 to 12 November 1956.
1957
A shield in the national colours before a blue field, in a wreath of wheat, under a red star.
A new emblem, the Kádár arms, was introduced in 1957: before the blue field stood a shield in the national colours with curved sides, derived from the Kossuth arms, and the wreath of wheat was bound with a ribbon in the national colours on the dexter, for socialist patriotism, and a red one on the sinister, for proletarian internationalism. Hungarian Wikipedia dates it from 1 May 1957 to 23 October 1989, while English Wikipedia says it was created in late 1957 and used until the adoption of the present arms in 1990.
1990
Barry of eight gules and argent, impaling gules, on a trimount vert a ducal coronet Or issuing therefrom a patriarchal cross argent; the Holy Crown rests on the shield.
After the change of regime, the first great debate of the new parliament was whether to adopt the Kossuth arms or the earlier crowned small arms: the revolutionary-democratic tradition or that of a thousand years of statehood. The liberal opposition proposed the Kossuth version, but the majority led by the Hungarian Democratic Forum chose the crowned arms, designed by the graphic artist Tibor Piros, in Act XLIV of 1990 amending the constitution. Hungarian Wikipedia gives the date as 3 July 1990 in one place and 11 July in another; English Wikipedia gives 11 July 1990.
Since 2012 the Fundamental Law of Hungary describes both symbols. Article I (1): “The coat of arms of Hungary shall be a vertically divided shield with a pointed base. The left field shall contain eight horizontal bars of red and silver. The right field shall have a red background and shall depict a base of three green hills with a golden crown atop the central hill and a silver patriarchal cross issuing from the middle of the crown. The Holy Crown shall rest on top of the shield.” Article I (2), on the flag:
Magyarország zászlaja három, egyenlő szélességű, sorrendben felülről piros, fehér és zöld színű, vízszintes sávból áll, amelyben a piros szín az erő, a fehér szín a hűség, a zöld szín a remény jelképe.
In English: the flag of Hungary consists of three horizontal stripes of equal width, red, white and green from the top, in which red stands for strength, white for fidelity and green for hope. Traditionally the four silver stripes of the arms stand for four rivers, the Duna, the Tisza, the Dráva and the Száva, and the triple hill for the mountain ranges of the Tátra, the Mátra and the Fátra.
The constitution does not fix the proportions of the flag. A government decree of 2000 sets those of the flags on government buildings at 1:2, while the civil flag is used both in the traditional 2:3 and in the newer 1:2; Hungarian seagoing ships fly the tricolour in 2:3 under a law of 1957. The colours are defined in the Hungarian standard MSZ 1361:2009: Pantone 18-1660 “Tomato” for the red and 18-6320 “Fairway” for the green.
The official state flag does not carry the coat of arms, but a variant with the arms in the centre is often used on solemn occasions. Under Act CCII of 2011 it may be used only by public bodies and office-holders in the exercise of their functions, among them the National Assembly, the President, the government, the armed forces, the courts and the local authorities. The military colour is white, bordered with red and green flames, with the arms between an oak branch and an olive branch.
On 16 December 2014 the National Assembly declared 16 March the day of the Hungarian flag and coat of arms, in memory of the adoption of Article XXI of 1848 on the national colours and the arms of the country.
Each county of Hungary, and the capital Budapest, has its own page in the atlas.
The Fundamental Law of Hungary says that red stands for strength, white for fidelity and green for hope, an interpretation from the romantic period. Another reading takes red for the blood shed for the homeland, white for freedom and green for the land.
Article XXI of the April Laws of 1848 made the red, white and green the official national colours. In its exact present form, without any emblem, the tricolour has been the official flag since 23 May 1957, and it was reaffirmed on 19 June 1990.
During the revolution of 1956 the insurgents cut the communist Rákosi emblem out of the flag, and the tricolour with a hole in the middle became the symbol of the revolution.
The red and silver stripes of the royal House of Árpád, first seen on the seal of King Imre in 1202. They form the dexter half of the present arms; traditionally the four silver stripes stand for the rivers Duna, Tisza, Dráva and Száva.
The arms of Hungary without the Holy Crown, used after the dethronement of the Habsburgs on 14 April 1849 and named after Lajos Kossuth; they were not the arms of the Kossuth family. They were again the state arms in 1918, from 1946 to 1949 and in 1956.
The Holy Crown of Hungary, the crown of King István I, Saint Stephen, which rests on top of the shield. The crown itself is kept today in the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest.
Illustrations: Wikimedia Commons. Flag of the 13th century by Oppashi (CC BY-SA 4.0); flag and great coat of arms of 1849 by Samhanin (CC BY-SA 3.0); flags of 895 and of István I (CC0); all other illustrations in the public domain.
Last reviewed by the Emblema Mundi editorial team on 25 October 2026.
