Flag of Belgium Flag of Belgium The national flag of the kingdom of Belgium (, , ) is a tricolour of three bands of black, yellow, and red. The colours were taken from the coat of arms of the Duchy of Brabant, and the vertical design may be based on the flag of France. When flown, the black band is nearest the pole (at the hoist side). It has the unusual proportions of 13:15. After the death of Charlemagne, the present-day territory of Belgium (except the County of Flanders) became part of Lotharingia, which had a flag of two horizontal red stripes separated
Flag of the Habsburg Monarchy II, the Austrian, later Austro-Hungarian Navy used a Naval Ensign ("Marineflagge") based on the red-white-red colours, and augmented with a shield of similar colours. Both of these flags became obsolete with Austria-Hungary's dissolution in 1918, and the newly formed rump state of German Austria adopted the red-white-red triband as its national flag. Today, the flag is similar to the flags of Munich, Germany and Namur, Belgium. Flag of the Habsburg Monarchy Since the days of Rudolph of Habsburg and the 1283 Treaty of Rheinfelden, the combination of red-white-red was widely considered to be the Austrian (later also Inner Austrian) colours