Design
editThe civil flag of Vienna is a rectangle divided horizontally into two equally-sized stripes: red on the top, and white on the bottom. The aspect ration of its height to its wight is equal 2:3.
History
editFlag of the City of Vienna. Just like the development of the coat of arms, the flag, which had developed from the army and field insignia, was closely linked to the craft of war. The coat of arms could be depicted well on the banners that were carried (large, square pieces of cloth). If a flag is understood to mean a single piece, such as a troop or club flag, a flag is interchangeable and can also be understood as an abstract, two-dimensional image. The city council commissioned the oldest surviving Viennese flag in 1465 for the vigilante group from the painter Hans Kaschauer. Kaschauer divided the almost square silk flag into four fields, of which two diagonally related fields each show one of the two coats of arms of Vienna, namely the golden double-headed eagle on a black background and the cross shield (a white cross in red). The flag now kept in the Wien Museum illustrates the duality of the municipal coat of arms and symbolism.
For Vienna, the colors red (color of the shield) and white (color of the cross) of the Viennese cross shield emerged as city colors early on. The striped flags that we take for granted today only became more widespread in the 19th century. From the Vormärz it was customary to fly a red and white flag. The year 1902 brought a change when the head of the nobility archive at the time took the position that the color of the coat of arms should be on the right and that of the shield on the left, which meant that the colors of Vienna were reversed and were now white and red. This view did not prevail.
On October 21, 1997, Vienna passed a new law on its symbols, which for the first time also included regulations on the state flag and colors.[1] The national colors are defined as red and white. The flag consists of two horizontal stripes of equal width, the upper one being red and the lower one white. The ratio of their height to length is two to three.
https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Wiener_Flagge
Vienna has had the red and white colors since 1844, but the current flag was not introduced until 1946.
With the reintroduction of the flag, the Viennese coat of arms with a silver cross in red was also reinstated. A cross shield first appeared on a Viennese pfennig in 1278, probably derived from the imperial storm flag. In 1924 the double-headed eagle on the coat of arms of Vienna was replaced by the single eagle facing west, which is still valid today.
Karl-Heinz Hesmer: Flaggen und Wappen der Welt. Mit aktuellen Länderinformationen. Gütersloh: Chronik Verlag, 2008, ISBN 3-577-14537-4. The Flag Institute: Nationalflaggen der Welt. Hamburg: Edition Maritim, 2000, ISBN 3-89225-402-8.