Country
For more than seven centuries the arms of Poland have been the White Eagle on a red field: from the seals of the Piast dukes it became the arms of the kingdom in 1295, was joined with the Pogoń of Lithuania in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, lost its crown in 1944 and regained it in 1989. The white and red flag, adopted on 1 August 1919, comes straight from the arms: the upper stripe is the white eagle, the lower one the red field of the shield.
Flag
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Coat of Arms
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| Arms | A crowned white eagle on a red field, its crown, beak and talons golden |
|---|---|
| Flag | Two horizontal stripes, white over red, in the proportions 5:8 |
| Eagle design | Zygmunt Kamiński, 1927; redrawn by Andrzej Heidrich, 1990 |
| Crown | Removed in 1944, restored on 31 December 1989 |
| Legal basis | Constitution of 1997, article 28; Act of 31 January 1980 |
| Flag Day | 2 May |
The first banners of the Kingdom of Poland showed the White Eagle on red, and the royal banner of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had red, white and red stripes with the arms. The white and red flag of 1919 comes from the colours of the arms. These are its stages. The flags of the provinces ruled by Prussia and Austria after the partitions, and the variants of the flag with the arms, are not included.
Click the thumbnails to go through the flags.
14th c.
A crowned white eagle on a red field.
The first flags and banners of the Kingdom of Poland showed a crowned white eagle on a red ground. Describing the preparations for the Battle of Grunwald, Jan Długosz writes of the “chorągwi wielkiej, na której wyszyty był misternie orzeł biały z rozciągnionemi skrzydły, dziobem rozwartym i z koroną na głowie, jako herb i godło całego Królestwa Polskiego”, the great banner on which a white eagle was skilfully embroidered with outstretched wings, open beak and a crown on its head, as the arms and emblem of the whole Kingdom of Poland. Wikimedia Commons adds that a seal of Duke Przemysł II from 1290 shows him holding a banner with a crowned eagle, and that under Władysław (1320–1333) the red cloth with the White Eagle became the royal banner.
1587
Three stripes, red, white and red, with the quartered arms of the Commonwealth under a crown.
According to Polish Wikipedia, the royal colours of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were a banner of three stripes, two red ones at the top and bottom and a white one between them, usually bearing the quartered arms of the Commonwealth: twice the crowned white eagle of the Crown and twice the Pogoń, the arms of Lithuania, with the family arms of the reigning monarch on an escutcheon. Wikimedia Commons describes this image as the royal banner, not a flag, of the time of the Vasa kings (1587–1668), but without the symbols of the House of Vasa. Originally the Polish national colour was crimson, a symbol of dignity and wealth; its dye was so costly that only the richest nobles and the dignitaries of the state could afford it. English Wikipedia says the banner of the Commonwealth was initially plain white and that in the 17th century it was usually divided into two, three or four horizontal stripes.
1831
Banner of the Kingdom of Poland from the Sejm chamber.
Polish Wikipedia shows this banner of the Kingdom of Poland from the Sejm chamber, carried away by Joachim Lelewel after the November Uprising of 1830–1831. Until then Polish soldiers had worn cockades of various colours. On 7 February 1831 the Sejm of the uprising adopted white and red, the colours of the Polish and Lithuanian arms, as the national cockade: “Kokardę Narodową stanowić będą kolory herbu Królestwa Polskiego i Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego, to jest kolor biały z czerwonym”. According to English Wikipedia, left-wing politicians such as Lelewel continued to regard the revolutionary blue, white and red as the true national colours.
1863
Flag of the Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth.
Polish Wikipedia shows this flag as the one used by the insurgents of the January Uprising in 1863–1864; Wikimedia Commons calls it the flag of the Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth. The National Government of the uprising adopted arms of three fields, the Polish eagle, the Pogoń of Lithuania and the Archangel Michael, patron of Ruthenia, for a union of three nations, Poles, Lithuanians and Ruthenians. The insurgents wore the white and red cockade, and according to English Wikipedia some guerrilla units used tricolour standards.
1919
Two horizontal stripes, white over red.
White and red are the colours of the arms, a white eagle on a red shield. They were first used publicly as national colours by civilians on 3 May 1792 in Warsaw, at the first anniversary of the Constitution of 1791. On 1 August 1919 the Legislative Sejm adopted the colours of the Republic: “kolor biały i czerwony w podłużnych pasach równoległych, z których górny – biały, dolny zaś – czerwony”. To avoid confusion with the white and red maritime signal flag, the same act introduced a variant with the arms in the white stripe for the civil ensign and for diplomats and consuls abroad. The shade of red was not fixed by law: a pamphlet of the Ministry of Military Affairs of 1921 showed it as crimson.
1928
Two horizontal stripes, white over red, the red in vermilion.
The shade of red was first fixed in law by a presidential decree of 13 December 1927, which made it vermilion; it took effect on 28 March 1928 according to Polish Wikipedia, on 29 March according to English Wikipedia, and Polish Wikipedia’s gallery dates the flags 1919–1928 and from 1928. The vermilion was kept in 1955 (by a decree of 7 December 1955, according to English Wikipedia), and the same flag was used by the People’s Republic until 1980.
1939–45
Flag of the Polish Underground State according to Polish Wikipedia; flag of the Armia Krajowa according to Wikimedia Commons.
Polish Wikipedia’s gallery captions this flag as the flag of the Polish Underground State; Wikimedia Commons describes it as the flag of the Armia Krajowa, the Home Army, with the symbol called the “Kotwica”, a combination of the letters P and W for “Polska Walcząca”, Fighting Poland. According to English Wikipedia, during the Second World War (1939–1945) the soldiers of the Home Army and of the Peasants’ Battalions wore white and red armbands, usually emblazoned with the acronyms of their formations. Polish Wikipedia also notes that the flag with the arms of 1928–1939 was used by the Polish government in exile.
1980
Two horizontal stripes, white over red, in the proportions 5:8.
The Act of 31 January 1980 on the coat of arms, colours and anthem defines the flag as a rectangle in the colours of the Republic in the proportions 5:8, and replaced the verbal description of the colours with trichromatic coordinates proposed by the colorimetry expert Nikodem Sobczak; Polish Wikipedia names the team of experts who prepared it as Szymon Kobyliński, Maria Szypowska, Kazimierz Sikorski and Nikodem Sobczak. The legal white is not perfectly white. Following the rules of heraldry, the upper stripe stands for the white eagle and the lower one for the red field of the shield.
For more than seven centuries the arms of Poland have been the White Eagle on a red field. Its drawing and its crown changed, and it shared the shield with the Pogoń of Lithuania and the arms of Saxony, or sat under the crown of Anna Ivanovna. These are its stages, from Przemysł II to today.
Click the thumbnails to go through the coats of arms.
1295
The crowned eagle on the reverse of the majestic seal of Przemysł II.
The eagle appeared on the coins and seals of the Piast dukes, and on their shields and banners, from the 12th century. According to Polish Wikipedia it first appears as a ducal emblem on the equestrian seal of Kazimierz of Opole and Racibórz in 1222, and was then taken up by the other lines of the Piasts. King Przemysł II first used the crowned eagle as the emblem of the state on the reverse of his majestic seal in 1295. English Wikipedia says the eagle first appeared on coins of Bolesław I (992–1025), while Polish Wikipedia notes that most numismatists, archaeologists and historians now agree that the bird on the denarius of Bolesław Chrobry is not an eagle. The legend of Lech, who saw a white eagle in its nest against a sky red with the setting sun, was first written down in the Greater Poland Chronicle of 1273.
1569
Quarterly: twice the crowned white eagle on red, and twice the Pogoń; a closed crown above the shield.
The Union of Lublin of 1569 joined the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The arms of the new state combined the symbol of the Crown, the White Eagle, with the Pogoń, the arms of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in white on a red or a blue field. The family arms of the reigning monarch were usually placed on an escutcheon, for instance the Sheaf of the Vasas, and the whole was topped by a closed crown. This image shows the general pattern, without the arms of a monarch.
1807
Per pale: the arms of Saxony, ten bars of black and gold with a green crancelin bendwise; and on red the white eagle in a closed crown, holding a golden sceptre and orb; a closed crown above the shield.
The dexter field holds the arms of Saxony, which were also those of the Wettin dynasty, to which the ruler of the Duchy of Warsaw, Fryderyk August I, belonged. The sinister field holds the arms of Poland, the white eagle with the royal insignia, as in the time of Stanisław August Poniatowski. The arms can still be seen today on the walls of the fortress of Modlin.
1815
The White Eagle under the crown of Anna Ivanovna.
From 1815 the Kingdom of Poland was under Russian control. Polish Wikipedia’s article on the national emblem describes this image as the small arms of the Kingdom of Poland of 1815 to 1832, with the crown of Anna Ivanovna, while its article on the arms of the Kingdom, marked as needing sources, describes it as the Polish element of the great arms of the Russian Empire. Wikimedia Commons dates the drawing from 1883. The arms of the Kingdom, in drawings modified in 1815, 1842 and 1858, were in force until 1869; by an ordinance of 14 (26) February 1870 they were replaced by the small arms of the Russian Empire. During the November Uprising the historian Joachim Lelewel proposed placing a Phrygian cap instead of the crown above the Eagle and the Pogoń, but the Sejm saw it as Jacobin symbolism and kept the Jagiellonian emblem.
1863
On the shield: the white eagle, the Pogoń and the Archangel Michael.
After the partitions, the partitioning powers gave the Polish lands new arms in which the white eagle appeared without a crown, with a crown, or beside the emblem of the occupying power. During the January Uprising of 1863–1864, the National Government adopted a new tripartite coat of arms, which beside the emblem of Poland and the arms of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania showed the Archangel Michael, patron of Ruthenia: the arms of a Commonwealth of three nations, Poles, Lithuanians and Ruthenians.
1919
Gules, a crowned eagle argent.
After independence, all political forces agreed that the emblem should be the White Eagle. The crown was disputed: politicians of the Polish Socialist Party and of the peasant movement were against it, the peasant politician Stanisław Thugutt most strongly. The act passed by the Legislative Sejm on 1 August 1919 introduced the crowned eagle; its official image resembled the eagle of Stanisław August Poniatowski.
1927
Gules, a crowned eagle argent.
The new design by Professor Zygmunt Kamiński was based on the eagle of the time of Stefan Batory. The traditional form was dropped: the cross was removed from the crown and two five-pointed rosettes were added. According to English Wikipedia the design was introduced by law on 13 December 1927 and came into effect on 29 March 1928. It was controversial from the start, criticised mainly for formal errors: the band on the wings, the talons and the beak should have been golden, the crown lacked gaps between its fleurons, and the drawing was shaded instead of flat with black outlines. Despite this, the design of 1927 has survived, with small changes, to this day. According to research by the heraldist Jerzy Michta published in 2017, it copied a medal (plaque) by Élisa Beetz-Charpentier; according to Polish Wikipedia, Aleksander Bąk disputed this in December 2018, arguing that the plaque was only issued in 1934.
1952
Gules, an eagle argent without a crown.
As early as 1944 the communist authorities, represented by the PKWN, returned to the pre-war image of the eagle but removed its crown. The Constitution of the Polish People’s Republic of 22 July 1952 published an eagle that differed from the pre-war one by the lack of a crown and by a border of the shield in the form of a general’s braid; according to Polish Wikipedia a decree of 1955 confirmed the removal of the crown and dropped the border, English Wikipedia speaks of a resolution of 1955. The government in exile answered with a decree of 11 November 1956 that placed a closed crown topped by a cross on the eagle’s head. The emblem of the People’s Republic was in force until 21 February 1990. The image shows its version of 1980 to 1989, according to Wikimedia Commons.
1990
Gules, a crowned eagle argent, beaked and armed Or.
After the elections of 1989, deputies of the Democratic Party proposed restoring the crown to the eagle. The Sejm adopted it almost unanimously, with 374 votes for and 1 against, when amending the Constitution of the People’s Republic: the crown returned on 31 December 1989, by the act of 29 December 1989, but the new design of the emblem, based on that of 1927 and redrawn by Andrzej Heidrich, came into force only on 22 February 1990, by the act of 9 February 1990. The changes removed the golden border around the shield and gave the rosettes on the wings the shape of a trefoil.
The emblem of the Republic of Poland.
Article 28 of the Constitution: “Godłem Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej jest wizerunek orła białego w koronie w czerwonym polu”, the emblem of the Republic of Poland is the image of a crowned white eagle in a red field. The Act of 1980 describes it more fully:
Godłem Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej jest wizerunek orła białego ze złotą koroną na głowie zwróconej w prawo, z rozwiniętymi skrzydłami, z dziobem i szponami złotymi, umieszczony w czerwonym polu tarczy.
In English: the emblem of the Republic of Poland is the image of a white eagle with a golden crown on its head turned to the right, with outstretched wings, with a golden beak and talons, placed in the red field of the shield. The official design is in the first annex to the Act; English Wikipedia notes that, unlike in classic heraldry, the law allows only this one official rendering.
In Polish heraldry the godło is only the charge, the stylised crowned eagle, and the herb is the charge placed on the shield, the eagle with its red field. The law speaks of the “godło” of the Republic but describes the whole coat of arms, which Polish Wikipedia calls an error of heraldic terminology; English Wikipedia adds that godło is also an archaic word for a national symbol of any kind. According to Polish Wikipedia, the Ministry of Culture resumed work in 2026 on changes to the eagle, which would also change the official name from godło to herb.
In heraldry white stands for silver, a metal, so a white eagle on a red field respects the rule of tinctures; the heraldic description is therefore a silver eagle in a golden crown on a red field, even though the symbol’s own name is the White Eagle. Polish Wikipedia marks this passage as needing a source. It also notes that while in Western European heraldry a crowned animal on a shield usually meant feudal dependence, the crowned White Eagle stood from the beginning for the sovereignty of Poland.
Each of the sixteen voivodeships of Poland has its own page in the atlas.
In Polish heraldry the godło is only the charge, here the crowned white eagle, while the herb is the charge on its shield, the eagle with the red field. The Act of 1980 speaks of the “godło” of the Republic but describes the whole coat of arms, which Polish Wikipedia calls an error of heraldic terminology.
White and red are the colours of the arms, a white eagle on a red shield: the upper stripe stands for the eagle and the lower one for the red field. They were first used publicly as national colours on 3 May 1792, made the national cockade on 7 February 1831, and adopted for the flag on 1 August 1919.
The eagle appeared on the coins and seals of the Piast dukes from the 12th century and, according to Polish Wikipedia, first as a ducal emblem in 1222; Przemysł II made the crowned eagle the emblem of the state in 1295. According to legend, Lech saw a white eagle in its nest against a red evening sky, settled there and named the place Gniezdno, now Gniezno.
The communist authorities removed the crown in 1944, and the Constitution of 1952 and a measure of 1955 confirmed the crownless eagle. The government in exile answered in 1956 with an eagle in a closed crown topped by a cross.
The crown returned on 31 December 1989, by the act of 29 December 1989 amending the constitution, but the new design of the emblem came into force only on 22 February 1990.
Since 2004 Polish Flag Day has been celebrated on 2 May. Until then Polish citizens were only allowed to fly the flag on national holidays.
Illustrations: Wikimedia Commons. Banner of 1587 after Olek Remesz (CC BY-SA 2.5); arms of 1569 © Władimir Łobaczow (CC BY-SA 3.0); arms of 1807 © Popik, banner of 1831 © Samhanin and flag of 1863 © Elevatorrailfan (CC BY-SA 4.0); emblem of 1980 to 1989 (CC0); other illustrations in the public domain.
Last reviewed by the Emblema Mundi editorial team on 25 October 2026.
