Europe

Flag of Italy

Italy is a southern European country occupying the boot-shaped peninsula that reaches into the Mediterranean, together with the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. The heart of the ancient Roman Empire and the birthplace of the Renaissance, Italy has shaped Western art, architecture, music, and cuisine more than almost any other nation. It holds more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any country on Earth, and Rome, the capital, completely surrounds the independent Vatican City. Italy unified into a single kingdom only in 1861.

CapitalRome
RegionEurope
Current flag since1946
Main coloursGreen, White, Red
Populationabout 59 million
Areaabout 301,000 km²
Flags in history7

Population and area are rounded.

What the flag of Italy means

The Italian tricolour was first adopted by the Cispadane Republic in 1797, modelled on the French flag carried by Napoleon's armies; green is said to come from the uniforms of the Milanese civic guard. During unification and under the monarchy it carried the arms of the House of Savoy, and the plain tricolour was adopted when Italy became a republic in 1946. A popular reading links the colours to hope, faith and charity.

How to recognise it

Vertical green-white-red. Ireland is green-white-orange. France is blue-white-red. Mexico has the same colours but with a coat of arms in the centre.

Did you know?

Italy has more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other country in the world.

Easily confused with

Italy's flag is often mixed up with these. Learn to tell them apart:

Ireland

France

Mexico

Flag history of Italy

Every flag that has flown over Italy, from today back through time.

1946–present

Italian Republic

After the 1946 referendum abolished the monarchy, the Savoy royal arms were removed, leaving the plain green-white-red tricolore enshrined in the 1948 Constitution. It remains Italy's flag today.

1861–1946

Kingdom of Italy

On unification in 1861 the tricolore carried the coat of arms of the House of Savoy at its centre. This flag flew for 85 years through both World Wars until the monarchy was abolished.

1848–1849

Republic of San Marco (Venice)

During the 1848 revolutions, Venice rose against Austrian rule and proclaimed the Republic of San Marco under Daniele Manin, placing the gold Winged Lion of Saint Mark on the Italian tricolor. Austria besieged and retook the city in 1849 after seventeen months — one of the last holdouts of the revolutionary wave.

1802–1814

Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy

A striking design of a red field bearing a white lozenge enclosing a green square. Adopted by Napoleon's Italian Republic in 1802, it carried over when he made himself King of Italy in 1805.

1797–1802

Cispadane Republic (first tricolore)

On 7 January 1797 in Reggio Emilia, the Cispadane Republic adopted a green-white-red tricolour — the very first official use of the Italian tricolore as a national flag.

839–1131

Duchy of Amalfi

Amalfi was one of the first Italian maritime republics, a Mediterranean trading power from the 9th to 12th centuries that rivalled Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. Its banner bore a white cross on blue — later associated with the Order of Malta. Norman conquest in 1131 ended its independence.

1816–1861

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

The largest of the pre-unification Italian states — Naples and Sicily under the Bourbons — conquered by Garibaldi's Redshirts and folded into a united Italy.

Related historical states

Empires, kingdoms and republics that once covered part of Italy.

697–1797

Republic of Venice

The golden winged Lion of St Mark holds an open Gospel; by tradition the book was shown open in peacetime and the lion grasped a sword in war.

1816–1861

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

The white Bourbon field carries an elaborate coat of arms of the many southern Italian domains the dynasty ruled, until Garibaldi's forces conquered it in 1860–61.

1816–1848

Kingdom of Sardinia

A white field with the red Savoy cross in a blue border. After 1848 Sardinia switched to the tricolor with the Savoy shield, which became the basis of the Kingdom of Italy's flag.

1099–1797

Republic of Genoa

The red cross of St George on white was Genoa's medieval ensign. By one account England paid Genoa in 1190 for the right to fly it for naval protection.

1797–1802

Cisalpine Republic

This Napoleonic sister republic in northern Italy flew a vertical green-white-red tricolor modeled on revolutionary France — a direct forerunner of the modern Italian flag.

1115–1532

Republic of Florence

The red giglio — a stylized lily — on white was the emblem of the medieval commune. Florence reversed the earlier white-on-red Ghibelline lily to mark its Guelph allegiance.

1125–1555

Republic of Siena

The black-and-white Balzana is said to recall the white and black smoke that rose when Siena's legendary founders Senius and Aschius made sacrifices on the city's hills.

1192–1797

Republic of Noli

One of the smallest and least-known Italian maritime republics, this tiny Ligurian town governed itself for six centuries under the protection of allied Genoa.

1416–1860

Duchy of Savoy

The white cross on red of the House of Savoy, the dynasty that ruled an Alpine state straddling France and Italy and eventually became the royal house of a united Italy.

1452–1859

Duchy of Modena and Reggio

Ruled by the Este dynasty and later the Austrian Habsburg-Este line, the duchy flew a tricolour charged with the Este eagle until it was absorbed into unified Italy.

1530–1708

Duchy of Mantua

The Gonzaga dynasty's duchy in the Po plain, a great Renaissance art and music centre, flew a flag quartered with their eagles and lions before passing to Austria.

1471–1598

Duchy of Ferrara

The Este capital and a brilliant Renaissance court; when the last legitimate Este duke died without heirs in 1597, the Pope reclaimed Ferrara for the Papal States.

1443–1631

Duchy of Urbino

The Montefeltro and later Della Rovere dukes made Urbino one of the foremost humanist courts of the Renaissance, birthplace of the painter Raphael.

961–1574

Marquisate of Montferrat

A long-lived northern Italian march whose Aleramici marquises led crusades and even briefly held the throne of the Kingdom of Thessalonica.

1442–1816

Kingdom of Naples

The independent southern kingdom before its 1816 merger with Sicily; its white flag bore the arms of the successive Aragonese, Spanish, and Bourbon dynasties that ruled it.

1808–1815

Kingdom of Naples (Napoleonic)

Under Napoleon's marshal Joachim Murat, Naples flew a white field with a red border and a central emblem, before Murat was deposed and executed in 1815.

1796–1797

Transpadane Republic

A short-lived Napoleonic sister republic around Milan that flew a vertical green-white-red tricolour, soon merged with the Cispadane Republic to form the Cisalpine Republic.

1798–1799

Roman Republic (1798)

A Napoleonic republic proclaimed after French troops seized Rome and deposed Pope Pius VI; its black-white-red tricolour flew until Neapolitan and Austrian forces restored papal rule.

1944

Partisan Republic of Ossola

A free zone liberated by anti-Fascist partisans in the Alps near the Swiss border, self-governing for forty days in 1944 before German and Fascist forces retook it.

1944

Partisan Republic of Alba

A Piedmontese town held free by partisans for 23 days in 1944, immortalized in Beppe Fenoglio's novel 'I ventitré giorni della città di Alba'.

1943–1945

Italian Social Republic

Mussolini's German-backed rump state in northern Italy, often called the Republic of Salò; its war flag added a fasces-clutching eagle to the tricolour.

1861–1946

Kingdom of Italy

The green-white-red tricolor charged with the crowned shield of the House of Savoy, flown through both World Wars until the 1946 referendum abolished the monarchy.

1765–1860

Grand Duchy of Tuscany

The red-white-red triband charged with the grand-ducal crown was used by the Habsburg-Lorraine grand dukes who ruled Florence and Tuscany.

1848–1849

Republic of San Marco

Daniele Manin's revolutionary Venetian republic flew the Italian tricolor with the winged Lion of St Mark in the canton, until Austria retook Venice in 1849.

1440–1826

Republic of Cospaia

A tiny accidental republic on the Tuscan–Papal border, created by a surveying error and famous for freely growing tobacco. Its flag is divided black and white diagonally.

1797–1798

Anconine Republic

A Napoleonic sister republic around the Adriatic port of Ancona, flying a light blue–yellow–red tricolor with the republic's name lettered across it.

1799

Parthenopean Republic

A short-lived Neapolitan sister republic that joined French blue with the yellow and red of Naples, crushed within months by a royalist peasant army.

1796–1797

Cispadane Republic

The first Italian horizontal red-white-green tricolor, with a central quiver of four arrows. Adopted on 7 January 1797, it is commemorated as Italy's Tricolour Day.

1836–1934

Kingdom of Tavolara

A tiny island kingdom off Sardinia ruled by the Bertoleoni family, sometimes called the smallest kingdom in the world. Its flag bears a gold star beneath a crown.

1814–1815

Principality of Elba

The tiny Mediterranean island Napoleon was given to rule during his first exile; he designed its white flag with a red bar and three gold bees before escaping to retake France.

1801–1807

Kingdom of Etruria

A short-lived Napoleonic client kingdom in Tuscany under the Bourbon-Parma dynasty, before Napoleon annexed it directly into France.

1545–1859

Duchy of Parma

A northern Italian duchy long ruled by the Farnese and later Bourbon-Parma dynasties, its yellow flag bearing a blue fleur-de-lis shield, absorbed into unified Italy.