Vertical Tricolor Flags

About Vertical Tricolor

The vertical tricolor is the signature flag pattern of post-revolutionary republicanism. The model is the Tricolore of France — three vertical bands of blue, white, and red adopted in 1794 — which fused the white of the Bourbon monarchy with the blue and red of Paris and broadcast a new ideal of liberty, equality, and fraternity. As France’s armies and ideas spread, so did the format: Italy, Belgium, Ireland, Mexico, the Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Guinea, Chad, Romania, and dozens of newly independent African states adopted vertical tricolors. The pattern is striking from a distance and easy to manufacture, and it carries an unmistakable political signal: this is a republic, not a kingdom. Even when the colors come from local symbolism (the green-white-red of Italy or the orange-white-green of Ireland), the underlying grammar is unmistakably French in origin.