Flag of Poland Flag of Poland The flag of Poland consists of two horizontal stripes of equal width, the upper one white and the lower one red. The two colors are defined in the Polish constitution as the national colors. A variant of the flag with the national coat of arms in the middle of the white stripe is legally reserved for official use abroad and at sea. A similar flag with the addition of a swallow-tail is used as the naval ensign of Poland. White and red were officially adopted as national colours in 1831. They are of heraldic origin and derive
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