Flag of Hesse Flag of Hesse The civil flag of Hesse consists of a bicolor of a red top and a bottom white stripe, in the proportion 3:5. The state flag is similar, except it is defaced with the state coat of arms in the centre, and may only be used by government departments and services. The colours red and white are based on that of the Ludovingian coat of arms, showing a lion with a ninefold horizontal white and red division. The coat of arms was inherited by the House of Hesse upon its split from the Duchy of Thuringia in 1247,
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