Country flag
Latvia Flag
Latvia’s state flag is carmine red with one white horizontal band. Latvian law fixes both its stripe proportions and its 1:2 overall proportion, while t...
Where is Latvia?
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About Latvia and its flag
Latvia’s state flag is carmine red with one white horizontal band. Latvian law fixes both its stripe proportions and its 1:2 overall proportion, while the Office of the President traces the flag’s modern national history through the early twentieth century and its restoration as the national flag in 1990.
Flag design and meaning
The flag consists of three horizontal bands: carmine red, white, and carmine red. Their height ratio is 2:1:2, and the official height-to-length ratio is 1:2. The bands reach the flag’s edges without a coat of arms, badge, or other central emblem.
- Carmine red: The President’s Office says the distinctive carmine shade was first described in a government document in 1922 so Latvia’s flag could be more readily distinguished from Austria’s similarly coloured flag.
History and adoption
The Office of the President notes a thirteenth-century mention in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, nineteenth-century patriotic use, and red-white-red displays at unification events in 1917. The Constitutional Assembly adopted a flag law on 15 June 1921. Use became punishable after the 1940 occupation, before national-flag status was restored on 27 February 1990.
How to recognise this flag
- Look for carmine red, a dark wine-like shade, rather than a bright standard red.
- The narrow white band is one-fifth of the flag’s height, enclosed by red bands twice as deep.
Latvia flag quiz context
On Name The Flag, the Latvia flag is currently grouped as medium difficulty for quiz progression.
Players may also want to compare it with Monaco, Indonesia, Poland and Austria, which can appear as plausible flag distractors.
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