Italy Flag

Flag for sale Italy Flag

The flag of Italy has been in use since 18 June 1946 and was formally adopted on 1 January 1948.

It's is a tricolour featuring three identical vertical stripes of green, white and red, with the green at the hoist side.

The Cisalpine Republic was the first entity to use the Italian tricolour in 1797, which followed Milan after Napoleon's victorious army crossed Italy in 1796. The colours chosen by the Cisalpine Republic were green, which was the colour of the uniform of the Milanese civic guard; red and white, the colours of the recently conquered flag of Milan.

Some have attributed particular values to the colours, and some people say that the green represents the country's plains and the hills; white, the snow of the Alps; and red is the blood spilt in the Wars for the Italian Independence and Unification. A more religious interpretation is that the green represents hope, the white represents faith, and the red represents charity.