KINGDOM OF PRUSSIA

NATIONAL & PROVINCIAL FLAGS IN 1900

The Kingdom of Prussia was one of the first nations to establish sub-national flags for its provinces. Most were introduced in the 1880s and all were of simple design, consisting of horizontal stripes of two or three colors. These colors, called in German Landesfarben (state colors) were the heraldic or livery colors from the provincial coats of arms, e.g. the red eagle on white of Brandenburg. The Kingdom of Prussia as a whole had both a state flag (displaying the crowned eagle from the royal coat of arms) and a Landesfarben flag (black over white). The latter was identical to the flag of the province of East Prussia, whence the kingdom derived its name. The standard of the King of Prussia displayed the royal arms on a red field. The flags of the Prussian provinces were sometimes charged with the shield of the provincial coat of arms, but the simple two-or three-color flags were much more common. A number of them remain in use today, e.g. by the contemporary German Land of Schleswig-Holstein.