There are more than 250 states on our planet, each of which has its own national flag. As a rule, it consists of stripes or other geometric shapes of different colors, symbolizing something important for a particular country. But since there are many states, flags sometimes repeat each other. For example, a blue-yellow-red flag, whose is it? There can be at least two answers to this question.
Where did the flags come from
The tradition arose several centuries ago and goes back to the time of the sea powers. Multi-colored flag banners gradually passed from sea ships to land ports, and then to entire states. Presumably, the first country to win its flag was Holland (Netherlands), whose navy and merchant fleets were the most powerful in the XVII-XVIII centuries. At the same time, a standard for the use of a rectangular shape for the flag banner appeared.
Gradually, the tradition spread to all countries of the world. The largest powers were the first to acquire flags. And then the former colonies, gaining independence, began to choose their own state symbols.
Twin towels
But, as independent states and self-governing territories became more and more each decade, the creation of an original symbol became an increasingly difficult task. As a result, the flags of many countries of the world were similar to each other. And some can hardly be distinguished at all. For example, a blue-yellow-red flag is vertical. It turns out that it is used by two countries in the world: Romania and Chad.
However, there is still a slight difference: the Chad tricolor is distinguished by a darker shade of the blue strip. The rest of the flags are identical.
Romania flag history
The Romanian symbol was first approved on June 26, 1848, and was used during the Wallachian Uprising in 1821. The flag blue-yellow-red has a fairly ancient origin. According to many historians, these three colors played an important role in the Romanian heraldry of the XV-XVI centuries, during the reign of Stephen the Great and Mihai the Brave.
It is noteworthy that initially the tricolor stripes were located horizontally. This was done in imitation of the flag of France, which became very popular in Europe after the French Revolution. For this reason, the new flag has become a symbol of the revolutionary transformations in Romania.
The values of the color bars were set as follows: blue - freedom, yellow - justice, red - brotherhood. Since 1867, they were no longer located horizontally, as on the French standard, but vertically. This served as a symbol of the unification of the three lands - Wallachia, Moldova and Bukovina - into a single state. Thus, the blue-yellow-red flag began to combine the heraldic colors of these territories.
This transformation of the flag did not end there: from 1867 to 1989, the socialist coat of arms was in the center of the tricolor, which was abolished during the revolution and the overthrow of the dictatorial regime of Ceausescu. The blue-yellow-red flag with the emblem cut out of it became a symbol of those events. The modern version of the Romanian standard was entrenched in late 1989.
Chad Flag History
This Central African country gained independence in 1958, and was formerly a colony of France. It is curious that for the first two years the new state continued to officially use the flag of the former metropolis - the French tricolor. Then drafts of a new national symbol were proposed. Initially, it was supposed to use the colors of the united Pan-African flag (red, black, green), but it was decided to abandon this idea, since other former colonies of France had already taken it for themselves . As a result, the Republic of Chad approved the blue-yellow-red flag, in which the first vertical strip symbolizes water and hope, the second - the sun and sand of the desert, and the third - shed blood and the unity of the nation.
Thus, the similarity of the flags of Romania and Chad is explained by French influence in different eras. Although the colors of the flag of the European country were invented before the African one, the current version of the Romanian tricolor was established 30 years later, so countries have no legal complaints.