National flag of Portugal

National flags suitable for both outdoor and indoor use.

Made of special polyester material with increased UV and weather resistance.

Intense and vivid colors, with excellent front/rear visibility.

Polyester Material:

• 100% polyester, weight 110 gr/m2
• The material is treated as fire-resistant class B

The material is printed using the latest generation technologies with water-based ecological ink.

The edges are finished with a double perimeter hem, and in the attachment part there may be:

• pylon/handle pocket
• reinforced tape and plastic carabiners, for attaching to the mast
• Fasteners: metal grommets/eyelets

The Flag of Portugal (Portuguese: Bandeira de Portugal) is the national flag of the Portuguese Republic. It is a rectangular bicolour with a field divided into green on the hoist, and red on the fly. The lesser version of the national coat of arms of Portugal (armillary sphere and Portuguese shield) is centered over the colour boundary at equal distance from the upper and lower edges. Its presentation was done on 1 December 1910, after the downfall of the constitutional monarchy on 5 October 1910. However, it was only on 30 June 1911, that the official decree approving this flag as the official flag was published. This new national flag for the First Portuguese Republic, was selected by a special commission whose members included Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, João Chagas and Abel Botelho.

The conjugation of the new field colours, especially the use of green, was not traditional in the Portuguese national flag's composition and represented a radical republican-inspired change that broke the bond with the former monarchical flag. Since a failed republican insurrection on 31 January 1891, red and green had been established as the colours of the Portuguese Republican Party and its associated movements, whose political prominence kept growing until it reached a culmination period following the Republican revolution of 5 October 1910. In the ensuing decades, these colours were popularly propagandised as representing the hope of the nation (green) and the blood of those who died defending it (red), as a means to endow them with a more patriotic and dignified, therefore less political, sentiment.

The current flag design represents a dramatic change in the evolution of the Portuguese standard, which had always been closely associated with the royal arms, blue and white. Since the country's foundation, the national flag developed from the blue cross-on-white armorial square banner of King Afonso I to the liberal monarchy's arms over a blue-and-white rectangle. In between, major changes associated with determinant political events contributed to its evolution into the current design.

Design

The decree that legally created the flag used under the constitutional monarchy with the new design was approved by the Constituent Assembly and published in government journal no. 141 (Portuguese: diário do Governo) on 19 June 1911. On 30 June, this decree had its regulations officially published in government diary no. 150. Nevertheless, this flag was first presented on the Day of the Republic on December 1, 1910, and that's the date that it is considered to be adopted, the Republic's Day, which is, still today a national holiday, and also considered the day of the flag.

Construction

Construction sheet with the official dimensions of the flag. All measures are relative to the length (L).

The flag's length is equal to 1+1⁄2 times its width, which translates into an aspect ratio of 2:3. The background is vertically divided into two colours: dark green on the hoist side, and scarlet red on the fly. The colour division is made in a way that green spans 2⁄5 of the length and the remaining 3⁄5 are filled by red (ratio 2:3). The lesser version of the national coat of arms (without the laurel wreaths)—a white-rimmed national shield on top of a black-highlighted yellow armillary sphere—is positioned over the border between both colours.

The armillary sphere has a diameter equal to 1⁄2 height and is equidistant from the upper and lower edges of the flag. The sphere, drawn in perspective, possesses six edge-embossed arcs, four of which are great circles and two are small circles. The great circles represent the ecliptic (wider oblique arc), the equator, and two meridians. These last three are positioned so that the intersections between each two arcs make a right angle; one meridian lies on the flag's plane while the other is perpendicular to it. The small circles consist of two parallels (the tropics), each tangent to one of the ecliptic-meridian intersections.

Vertically centered over the sphere is the national shield, a white-rimmed curved bottom red shield charged with a white inescutcheon. Its height and width are equal to 7⁄10 and 6⁄10 of the sphere's diameter, respectively. The shield is positioned in a way that its limits intersect the sphere:

• at the inflection points of the distal edges of the Tropic of Cancer's anterior half (top) and Tropic of Capricorn's posterior half (bottom);
• at the intersection of the lower edges of the ecliptic's posterior half and of the equator's anterior half (dexter or viewer's left side); and
• at the intersection of the upper edge of the ecliptic's anterior half with the lower edge of the equator's posterior half (sinister or viewer's right side).

A curious aspect of the official design is the absence of a segment of the Tropic of Capricorn, between the national shield and the ecliptic arc.

The white inescutcheon is itself charged with five smaller blue shields (escudetes) arranged like a Greek cross (1+3+1). Each smaller shield holds five white bezants displayed in the form of a saltire (2+1+2). The red bordure is charged with seven yellow castles: three on the chief portion (one in each corner and one in the middle), two in the middle points of each quadrant of the curved base (rotated 45 degrees), and two more on each side of the bordure, over the flag's horizontal middle line. Each castle is composed by a base building, showing a closed (yellow) gate, on top of which stand three battlemented towers. In heraldic terminology, the shield's blazon is described as Argent, five escutcheons in cross azure each charged with five plates in saltire, on a bordure gules seven towers triple-turreted Or, three in chief.

The colour tones of the flag are not precisely specified in any legal document. Recommendations are listed below: