Flag of Italy

Italy’s national flag has three equal vertical bands: green beside the staff, white in the middle, and red at the free edge. The standard rectangle has a 3:2 width-to-height ratio. Known as il Tricolore, it carries no coat of arms, crown, star, lettering, or other central emblem.

The present republican flag is a plain tricolor. The Savoy shield belonged to the royal flag and disappeared with the republican design established in June 1946. Italy also has a separate state emblem and several flags for specific official uses. Their symbols should not be added to an ordinary national flag.

Italy’s flag is green, white, and red. Official textile references are Pantone 17-6153, 11-0601, and 18-1662 respectively. The downloadable digital flag uses #009246, #FFFFFF, and #CE2B37. These HEX values describe the supplied artwork; they are not an assertion that the official textile specification mandates identical values on every screen.

The colors have historical roots in northern Italy: white and red appeared in Milan’s civic arms, while green was associated with its civic guard. Later writers gave the colors patriotic and moral meanings. Those interpretations enrich the flag’s cultural history, but Article 12 does not assign a separate official virtue to each stripe.

Italy’s national flag has a 3:2 width-to-height ratio: its length is one and a half times its height. A source that lists height first writes 2:3. The three vertical bands have equal widths, so each band occupies one third of the total flag area. Proportional scaling preserves the complete design.

Draw a rectangle three units wide and two units high. Divide its width into three equal parts with vertical lines. Fill the first third green, the middle third white, and the final third red, with green at the hoist. Do not add outlines between the stripes or place a symbol in the center.

Government protocol guidance gives ordinary outdoor examples of 300×200 or 450×300 centimeters, and an indoor example of 150×100 centimeters. It presents them as practical size guidance, not a single compulsory dimension for every setting. All three examples preserve the national 3:2 ratio and keep the three colored bands equal.

Italy’s tricolor developed from revolutionary cockades and military colors into the Cispadane flag of 1797, a symbol of the Risorgimento, and the royal flag of united Italy. The republican design removed the Savoy shield in 1946. Constitutional confirmation, specialized maritime ensigns, public-display rules, and textile color standards followed in separate stages.

Italy traces the national tricolor’s birth to Reggio Emilia on January 7, 1797, when the parliament of the Cispadane Republic approved green, white, and red on Giuseppe Compagnoni’s proposal. That early flag had horizontal bands and a central emblem. The anniversary celebrates the national colors’ adoption, not an unchanged modern layout.

No single person designed every stage of Italy’s flag. Giuseppe Compagnoni proposed the Cispadane parliament’s adoption of the tricolor in 1797 and is closely associated with its national birth. Earlier military and civic traditions supplied the colors. Later political and constitutional decisions produced the plain vertical flag of the present republic.

Yes. The Napoleonic Italian Republic of 1802–1805 used a land flag with a red square, a white diamond, and a green square in the center. It retained the three national colors in a different arrangement. This historical design later inspired Italy’s presidential standard, but it is not the current national flag.

The royal tricolor carried the Savoy shield: a white cross on a red shield outlined in blue. A crowned state version also existed. The 1925 rules distinguished the national model from the state model used at specified royal and government premises. These historical emblems disappeared from the plain republican national flag in 1946.

The plain republican flag was established provisionally by a legislative decree of June 19, 1946. The Constituent Assembly confirmed the flag wording on March 24, 1947, and Article 12 entered into force with the Constitution on January 1, 1948. These dates concern the modern republic, while January 7, 1797 marks the tricolor’s earlier national origin.

A maker should preserve the 3:2 rectangle, equal vertical bands, green hoist, white center, and red fly. Official textile references guide the colors of cloth, while the government’s ordinary size examples help with planning. Suitable fabric, sound seams, and secure attachments support dignified display without changing the visible national design.

Both maritime ensigns place the emblems of Venice, Genoa, Amalfi, and Pisa in the white band. The Italian Navy’s ensign has a naval crown and a Venetian lion holding a sword. The merchant ensign has no crown and shows the lion with an open book. Neither replaces the plain national flag for general use.

No. Italy’s state emblem is a separate design with a white star edged in red, a steel cogwheel, olive and oak branches, and a ribbon naming the republic. Paolo Paschetto designed it, and a decree established it on May 5, 1948. The ordinary national flag remains the plain green, white, and red tricolor.

Italy’s presidential standard is a square flag with a blue border, a red field, a white diamond, and a green square bearing the golden emblem of the Republic. The current design was introduced in 2000. It identifies the President’s presence and draws historical inspiration from the Napoleonic Italian Republic’s flag of 1802–1805.

The tricolor cockade arranges the national colors in concentric areas: red outside, white between, and green at the center. The government’s historical guide connects cockades used in Bologna in 1794 with the flag’s early development. A cockade is a related national symbol, not a circular replacement for the rectangular national flag.

Italy celebrates National Flag Day, commonly called Festa del Tricolore, on January 7. It commemorates the Cispadane parliament’s adoption of the tricolor at Reggio Emilia on January 7, 1797. Law No. 671 of December 31, 1996 established the observance and expressly made it a non-holiday celebration, distinct from Republic Day on June 2.

Republic Day falls on June 2 and commemorates the 1946 referendum on Italy’s institutional form. It is a national public holiday. Flag Day falls on January 7 and recalls the tricolor’s 1797 origin. The two observances honor different stages of Italian history, although the national flag is prominent on both occasions.

Public-display rules require the flag to be in good condition, properly unfurled, and carried on its own staff. They prohibit adding figures, writing, or letters to the flag or its staff. The principal framework is Law No. 22 of 1998 and Presidential Decree No. 121 of 2000, with specialized military and international ceremonial rules preserved.

In a paired display, Italy’s flag occupies the position of honor: the right from the building looking outward, which is the observer’s left when facing it. The Italian and European Union flags have equal dimensions and material on staffs at the same height. Italy’s flag is raised first and lowered last.

With the staff on the left, the front view reads green, white, red. From the opposite side, the observer sees red, white, green and the staff on the right. Green still adjoins the hoist. A reversed photograph can therefore look different without showing a different flag or an incorrectly sewn tricolor.

The national and European Union flags are displayed at specified government, parliamentary, judicial, educational, and other public premises under the 1998 law and 2000 regulations. The rules also address polling places and designated official rooms. These institutional duties should not be mistaken for a requirement that every private home display a flag every day.

The public-display regulations normally associate raising and lowering with daylight, but they permit nighttime outdoor display when the location is adequately illuminated. The government’s guide also discusses continued illuminated display. This lighting condition is separate from the rules for mourning, position of honor, or the dates on which particular institutions must fly flags.

Half-mast is the outdoor arrangement for public mourning. National mourning instructions come through the competent state authorities; local institutions control mourning for their own flags and should seek the relevant institutions’ agreement before lowering other flags. Indoor displays can use two black ribbons. A standing illustration of mourning does not announce a current mourning order.

Yes. The government’s protocol guidance says private flag display is not subject to a special authorization regime: individuals may choose to display the tricolor. They should respect its dignity and keep it in good condition. The duties applying to specified public institutions do not mean that every private balcony must also carry an EU flag.

Keep the flag clean, intact, recognizable, and properly unfurled. Replace cloth that is torn, badly faded, or otherwise unsuitable for dignified display. Clean and dry it according to its fabric instructions before storage. The general public-display sources reviewed here do not establish one compulsory civilian folding pattern or a universal flag-burning retirement ceremony.

Italy has a plain green-white-red vertical tricolor in a 3:2 rectangle. Ireland’s fly band is orange and its flag is 2:1. Mexico adds a central eagle-and-snake coat of arms and uses 7:4. Hungary arranges red, white, and green horizontally. Color order, orientation, emblem, and proportions together provide reliable identification.

The photographs show a full-size flag flying at the Vittoriano in Rome in 2025 and Italian and U.S. desk flags at a diplomatic meeting in Rome in 2021. They illustrate outdoor and tabletop use. Both are genuine documented photographs with local downloads, preserved frames, and visible creator credits.

The Italy flag emoji is 🇮🇹. Its sequence combines regional indicator I, U+1F1EE, with regional indicator T, U+1F1F9. A platform may show a waving tricolor or the two letters. That small platform-dependent image identifies Italy in text; it is not a measurement or color standard for producing a national flag.

The downloads include a clean 3:2 SVG, a 6000×4000 PNG, construction and color diagrams, historical flag reconstructions, maritime ensigns, the presidential standard, display illustrations, comparisons, and two photographs. Each gallery item has a local download and caption. The national master contains only the three equal colored bands, without labels or decorative effects.