Bohemia

The flag of Bohemia is identical to the flag of Poland, but does not have the same meaning. It forms part of the Czech flag. The flag is a horizontal bicolor of white on the top and red on the bottom.
== Symbolism==
The Bohemian flag is identical to the Polish flag, but those two flags are in no way related. The flag is actually based off of the colors that the former monarchs of Bohemia wore. These colors came from the coat of arms of Bohemia. The arms featured a red background with a silver lion in the rampant position. In heraldry, white and silver were known as silver. So the white on the Bohemian flag refers to the coat of arms.
==History ==
The colors of the flag, white and red, originate from the coat of arms of the King of Bohemia—a silver lion on a red field—granted to King Vladislaus I in the 12th century. This coat of arms soon became the symbol of the entire kingdom.
The oldest surviving full-color depiction of the Bohemian arms is a fresco in the hall of Gozzoburg Castle in Krems an der Donau, dating back to the early 1270s. Another depiction appears in the manuscript of Abbess Kunigunde from the 1310s.
White and red bicolor banners were carried into battle by Bohemian kings’ armies and were later adopted by the Czech national movement in the 19th century. However, when the Czech national aspirations were realized in 1918 with the establishment of an independent Czech state, a unique flag became necessary to distinguish it from neighboring Poland's flag. In 1920, the new Czechoslovak flag was introduced, incorporating the white and red horizontal stripes from the Bohemian flag but adding a blue triangle for distinctiveness.
In 1990, the Bohemian flag was officially adopted as the flag of the Czech Republic, then part of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (ČSFR, 1990–1992). This move responded to Slovakia adopting its own symbols, yet the Bohemian flag saw limited use compared to the broader Czechoslovak flag. Meanwhile, the Slovak flag (without a coat of arms) gained widespread use, reflecting growing separatist sentiment in Slovakia, as opposed to federalist tendencies in the Czech Republic. Concerns about the Bohemian flag's similarity to Poland's flag—distinguished only by proportions (2:3 for Bohemia and 5:8 for Poland)—led Czech leaders to retain the Czechoslovak flag as the national symbol, aligning with public sentiment.
Since 1993, the Bohemian flag has held no legal status and is now rarely seen in the Czech Republic.
Category:Czech Republic
Category:Europe
Category:Bohemia
Category:White
Category:Red
Category:Bicolour
Category:Horizontal bicolor
Category:Proportions 2-3