Country
The flag of Norway is the red flag with a blue cross bordered in white that Fredrik Meltzer designed in 1821: its red and blue recalled the former and the present union partners, Denmark and Sweden, and in an earlier letter Meltzer had praised red, white and blue as the colours of freedom. The coat of arms is far older: a crowned golden lion holding an axe on a red shield, which received the axe of Saint Olav around 1280, and whose content has not changed since 1285.
Flag
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Coat of Arms
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| Flag | Gules, a Nordic cross Azure fimbriated Argent; proportions 16:22 |
|---|---|
| Flag adopted | Royal resolution of 13 July 1821; pure flag by the law of 10 December 1898 |
| Designer | Fredrik Meltzer, member of the Storting from Bergen |
| Arms | Gules, a lion rampant Or, crowned Or, holding an axe Argent hafted Or |
| Blazon in force | Royal resolution of 19 March 1937 |
Before Norway had a flag of its own, its kings fought under banners: Olav Haraldsson, later Saint Olav, used a white banner with a serpent at the battle of Nesjar in 1016, and Harald Hardråde a raven. These are the stages of the Norwegian flag, from the lion banner of the Middle Ages to the pure flag of 1898.
Click the thumbnails to go through the flags.
1318
Gules, a lion rampant Or, crowned Or, holding an axe Argent hafted Or.
The oldest known form of a Norwegian flag is the lion of the arms on a banner. Such a banner appears on the seal of Duchess Ingebjørg from 1318: a royal flag with the golden lion and the silver axe on red. It was later used now and then on ships and fortresses, and it still flew over Akershus Fortress in 1698. The image is a modern drawing of a possible medieval Norwegian flag, after contemporary depictions of flags from Scandinavia and Scotland. The present royal standard, introduced in 1905, is a modern version of this first Norwegian flag.
1430
Or, a cross Gules.
From 1397 Norway was part of the Kalmar Union with Denmark and Sweden. The only description of a union flag comes from two letters of 1430, in which King Erik av Pommern ordered the priests of Vadstena and Kalmar to wear the “banner of the realms” on their robes: a red cross on a yellow field. No flag and no picture from the time of the union survive, so the image is a reconstruction, and its status is uncertain: Wikipedia calls it the unofficial or the probable flag of the union.
17th c.
Gules, a Nordic cross Argent.
Through the union with Denmark, the Danish flag, the Dannebrog, came into use in Norway in the 17th and 18th centuries, on Norwegian warships and fortresses as well. From 1748 it was the only recognised merchant flag of Denmark-Norway. The lion banner was gradually phased out; a modern version of it has been the royal standard since 1905.
1814
The Dannebrog, with the Norwegian lion in the canton.
On 27 February 1814, after the separation from Denmark, the regent Christian Frederik proclaimed the Dannebrog with the Norwegian lion in the upper field at the hoist as the flag of Norway, both as naval ensign and as merchant flag. It remained the merchant flag until 1821. As naval ensign it was replaced on 7 March 1815 by a flag of the new union with Sweden: the Swedish flag with a Norwegian canton, a square red field with a white saltire, which caused great discontent in Norway because the country had no naval ensign of its own. In 1818 both countries also received a common merchant flag on the same pattern. The image follows the 1814 flag of Fredriksten Fortress.
1821
Gules, a Nordic cross Azure fimbriated Argent.
In 1821 the Storting had eighteen proposals before it, and the debate opposed those who wanted red, as in the union with Denmark, and those who wanted blue, to honour the new union partner. In a letter about an earlier proposal, Fredrik Meltzer, a member from Bergen, had praised red, white and blue because they “nu betegne Friheden” (now denote freedom), as in the flags of France, the Netherlands, the United States and Britain. His proposals could end the dispute. Of his final design, a blue cross bordered in white on red, he wrote in his diary that the change was needed “Da man absolut vilde have rødt Flag med hvidt Kors i og desuden noget blaat for at tegne Foreningen med Sverige” (since a red flag with a white cross was absolutely wanted, and also some blue to mark the union with Sweden). It was adopted in the Odelsting on 4 May 1821 by 40 votes out of 59, and unanimously by the Lagting on 16 May (English Wikipedia gives 11 and 16 May for the two chambers); old Danish flags could even be cut up and given blue stripes. King Carl Johan refused to sanction the law and approved the flag instead by royal resolution of 13 July 1821. It was a merchant flag, used only north of Cape Finisterre until 1838: further south, Norwegian ships had to sail under the Swedish or the union flag for protection against the corsairs of North Africa.
1844
Gules, a Nordic cross Azure fimbriated Argent, the union mark of Norway and Sweden in the canton.
By royal resolution of 20 June 1844, Oscar I gave both countries their own merchant flags and naval ensigns, with a common union mark in Norwegian and Swedish colours in the canton. The colours of the two countries took up the same area in the mark, to show that both kingdoms were equal in the union. The mark was nicknamed “sildesalaten”, the herring salad, a name that arose first in Sweden. It was long well received in Norway; from the 1880s, the growing wish for independence brought demands to remove it.
1898
Gules, a Nordic cross Azure fimbriated Argent.
After long political disputes, the “pure” flag without the union mark was adopted as merchant flag by the law of 10 December 1898, promulgated without royal sanction after the Storting had passed it for the third time, and it came into use on 15 December 1899. At the same time Norway received a state flag, a swallow-tailed flag without the union mark. Under the Constitution the naval ensign had to remain a union flag: the pure naval ensign was hoisted on 9 June 1905, just after the union with Sweden had ended.
The content of the arms has not changed since 1285: a golden lion with a golden crown and a silver axe with a golden haft, on red. According to the Store norske leksikon, the crown above the shield was added in 1699; Norwegian Wikipedia describes a stylised crown on the shield from around 1500, with arches from the 17th century. Otherwise only the drawing has changed, as these four stages show.
Click the thumbnails to go through the coats of arms.
c. 1280
Gules, a lion rampant Or, crowned Or, holding an axe Argent hafted Or.
The arms took their form under King Eirik Magnusson and are known from coins and seals of the 1280s and from an English roll of arms of about 1280. They built on older models within the royal family: Duke Skule Bårdsson, Håkon Håkonsson and Magnus Lagabøte already used the lion. According to the Store norske leksikon, Eirik Magnusson gave the lion a crown and an axe on his accession in 1280, to show the link with Saint Olav: the king of Norway acted as the deputy of Olav, “Norway’s eternal king”. Norwegian Wikipedia leaves it open whether it was Magnus VI, who died in 1280, or the regency of his son Eirik. The image is a drawing of the seal of King Eirik from 1285, published in 1924.
1844
A red four-cornered shield, in which a crowned golden lion stands upright and striding, with open mouth and outstretched tongue, holding in its forepaws a raised battle-axe with a golden haft and a silver blade; above the shield a royal crown.
From the late Middle Ages the haft of the axe grew into a long, curved halberd, the dominant form during the Danish period. King Oscar I fixed the appearance of the arms by royal resolution of 10 July 1844, the first time an official form was laid down: the short-hafted axe returned, but the lion kept a bent back, and the shield was almost square, after the fashion of the time. The same year Oscar I introduced a union coat of arms for both his kingdoms, little used in Norway. The image comes from Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon (1901).
1905
A heraldic crowned lion with the axe of Olav, which has a silver blade, in a triangular bright red shield without a frame.
After the dissolution of the union, a new official drawing followed a proposal from Harry Fett, among others, in consultation with the Danish heraldist Anders Thiset, drawn by the painter Eilif Peterssen and fixed by royal resolution of 14 December 1905. It returned to medieval models: a more upright lion, after the lions of the royal seals of the 13th and 14th centuries, in a triangular “Gothic” shield. On top of the crown stood a small crowned lion with the axe, which Hallvard Trætteberg later criticised. The image is Peterssen’s original drawing for the resolution. The royal family still uses this version in the royal standard and the royal arms.
1937
Noregs riksvåpen er ei upprett gull-løve på raud grunn med gullkrone på hovudet og gullskjeft sylvøks i framlabbane.
The royal resolution of 19 March 1937 fixed the blazon still in force: an upright golden lion on red with a golden crown on its head and a silver axe with a golden haft in its forepaws. The archivist and artist Hallvard Trætteberg drew a stricter, stylised lion in pure flat style, adopted for the state and nicknamed “the starved cat”; the small lion on the crown disappeared. The sources date his drawing variously to 1936, 1937 and 1939. During the occupation, Vidkun Quisling adopted on 18 December 1943 a version with an open crown, rarely used, and after the liberation the state returned to Trætteberg’s drawing. The image shows his drawing as reworked by Sverre Morken, approved on 16 December 1992, and redrawn in 2023 for the Norwegian Government Design Programme.
Riksvåpenet — blazon of 19 March 1937.
Gules, a lion rampant Or, crowned Or, holding an axe Argent hafted Or.
The royal resolution of 19 March 1937 reads: “Noregs riksvåpen er ei upprett gull-løve på raud grunn med gullkrone på hovudet og gullskjeft sylvøks i framlabbane.” Above the shield there is normally a royal crown with orb and cross, and all drawings of the arms for public institutions must be approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, unless they are fixed by the King.
Under a royal resolution of 20 May 1927, the arms may only be used by the authorities of the state in their public activity. Since 1905 they have also served as the royal arms, then placed on the royal ermine mantle and surrounded by the chain of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. Since 2016 the Storting has used its own drawing of the arms, with the same blazon but with a different crown instead of the royal crown with orb and cross.
The lion faces left as seen by the viewer, which is heraldic right. By the rules of heraldic courtesy it may be mirrored in some situations, for example on the right-hand door of a vehicle, so that it faces forward, in the direction of travel.
The flag law of 1898 describes it in the spelling of its time: “Norges Koffardiflag skal være et høirødt, med et mørkeblaat, og af en hvid Kant indfattet Kors”, a bright red flag with a dark blue cross set in a white border. Its proportions are 6–1–2–1–12 in width and 6–1–2–1–6 in height. The state flag and naval ensign is a swallow-tailed flag with a tongue, 6–1–2–1–6–11 in width. No official colour codes have been fixed, and the shades in use vary.
Fredrik Meltzer, a member of the Storting from Bergen. His design, a blue cross bordered in white on red, was adopted in the Odelsting on 4 May 1821 by 40 votes out of 59, and approved by royal resolution of 13 July 1821.
Red and blue recalled the former and the present union partners, Denmark and Sweden: in his diary Meltzer wrote that some blue was needed to mark the union with Sweden. In an earlier letter he had also praised red, white and blue as the colours of freedom, as in the flags of France, the Netherlands, the United States and Britain. According to the Store norske leksikon, the cross represents the Christian tradition of the country, like the crosses of the other Nordic flags.
The lion of the arms on a banner. The oldest certain depiction is on the seal of Duchess Ingebjørg from 1318: a royal flag with the golden lion and the silver axe on red. The present royal standard is a modern version of it.
The axe is the emblem of Saint Olav. According to the Store norske leksikon, King Eirik Magnusson gave the lion a crown and an axe on his accession in 1280, to show that the king of Norway acted as the deputy of Olav, Norway’s eternal king.
It dates from the 13th century and is among the oldest in Europe. Its content has not changed since 1285; according to the Store norske leksikon, the crown above the shield was added in 1699. Otherwise only the drawing has changed: the official drawings date from 1844, 1905, the late 1930s and 1992.
The nickname, sildesalaten, of the union mark of Norway and Sweden, placed in the canton of both countries’ flags in 1844. It was removed from the Norwegian merchant flag by the law of 1898, in use from 1899, and from the naval ensign in 1905.
Illustrations: Wikimedia Commons. Drawing of a possible medieval royal banner (Samhanin, after Roede) and flag of 1814 (Samhanin): CC BY-SA 4.0; all other images in the public domain.
Last reviewed by the Emblema Mundi editorial team on 20 October 2026.