History of Armenia Flag

The earliest Armenian flag that we could locate dates back to 180 BC.

The very early flags were carvings attached to a pole. The flags came in a variety of base colors. The designs featured eagles, dragons, lions and more symbols representing the gods. During the early Christian era there were purple flags with an embossed lion.

When Levon II was anointed King of the Rubenian Dynasty the Pope sent him a white flag that had a red lion on it.

When the Rubenian Dynasty fell and the Armenian lost their independence there was no national flag. It wasn’t until 1855 that the quest for a national flag began again. A group of Armenian students in Paris wanted to attend Victor Hugo’s funeral under an Armenian flag. They asked Father Alishan for the true colors of the Armenian flag.

Without any historical truth the priest chose the colors from the Armenian church calendar, red for the first Sunday of Easter, green for the second, the white completed the flag.

Later the priest arbitrarily changed the colors to yellow red and green, taking them from the rainbow because he said God gave the Armenian flag on the actual day when the rainbow appeared over Noah’s Ark after the flood. This flag was adopted by the Armenians and used in WWI.

Eventually the government of the Independent Republic of Armenia decided to use the colors of the last Rubenian dynasty: red, blue and yellow. However the yellow was almost instantly dropped and orange was chosen.

The Armenian tricolor has three horizontal panels red, green and orange.

When Armenia was under Soviet control there were some changes in the flag and all these flags had Soviet emblems.

The flag currently in use was re adopted on 24 August 1990 first before Armenia became free once more.

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