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Belgium

België, Belgique, Belgien

by António Martins

Flag adopted 23 January 1831, coat of arms adopted 17 May 1837
Proportions: 13:15
Description: Vertically divided black-yellow-red.
Use: on land, civil and state flag.

Colour approximate specifications (as given in Album des Pavillons [pay00]):

Red: Pantone 186 c / CMYK (%) C 0 - M90 - Y 80 - K 5
Yellow: Pantone 116 c / CMYK (%) C 0 - M 15 - Y 95 - K 0

Origin of the flag
National anthem

See also:

Belgium: Index of all related pages

Origin of the flag

Colours

The colours of the Belgian flag were taken from the arms of Brabant, a province in the Low Countries (the Netherlands + Belgium), which extended from the Walloon province of Walloon Brabant, over Flemish Brabant (and Brussels) and Antwerpen in Flanders, and in the Netherlands the province of North-Brabant. The arms of Brabant show on a black field a yellow lion facing the viewer's left, with a red tongue and nails were red. The heraldic description (blazon) of these arms is:

Sable a lion rampant or armed and langued gules

The lion of Brabanr features on the arms of the Belgian kingdom and the provincial arms of Walloon Brabant and Flemish Brabant, as well as on the arms of the Dutch province of North-Brabant.

Filip Van Laenen, 29 October 1997

Proportions

The Belgian flag has odd proportions of 13:15, whose origin remains unknown, as stated by Léon Nyssen (Les drapeaux nouveaux de la Belgique fédérale, pp. 142-145 in Fahnen, Flags, Drapeaux [icv93]):

"Concerning the odd 13:15 proportions, nobody is able to explain its origin."

Ivan Sache, 29 December 1999

According to information kindly forwarded by Michel Lupant no exact date of issue can be found, but the proportions of 13:15 stem from a XIXth Century directive of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs which gave the official Belgian flag as being 2.60 metres high x 3.00 metres long. Flag in this ratio are, I am advised, occasionally to be seen on important Government buildings such as Parliament, but (as we know) the vast majority (flown by both the Government and civil population) are in 2:3.

Michel also knows of a few instances where 13:15 flags have been ordered and flown by foreign Governments when a Belgian ambassador was presenting his credentials, but he himself only possesses a table model.

Note that the first official drawing with vertical stripes (1831) has proportions 3:4.

Christopher Southworth, 18 August 2003

The 1:1 proportions are fine theoretically, only people in Belgium would be very surprised ('everyone knows the Belgian flag is not a square but a rectangle', they would say). The 13:15 proportions may be the official ones but this fact is largely unknown.

Jan Mertens, 19 August 2003

Arrangement of the stripes

by Mark Sensen

Flags with horizontal stripes were used in a first revolution, in December 1789 when the Belgians unsuccessfully raised against the Hapsburgs (Austrians). On a drawing showing those flags, the colours are arranged red-black-yellow.

by Ivan Sache

On 25 August 1830, after the performance of Auber's freedom opera La Muette de Portici, the revolt began against the Dutch king William I. The next day a French (!) flag was hoisted on the city hall of Brussels. Two men, Lucien Jottrand and Edouard Ducpètiaux, remembered the colours used in 1789 and made two flags horizontally divided red-yellow-black; one to replace the French flag on the city hall, and the other for marching through the streets.

On 23 January 1831 the Belgian Provisional Gouvernment decreed:

The flag of Belgium is red, yellow and black. These colours are arranged vertically.

However, in article 124 of the Belgian Constitution of 4 February 1831 no order of colours was given. On 13 September 1831 the minister of the Navy decreed:

Black must be placed on the hoist, yellow in the middle and red on the fly.

This flag was last confirmed on 28 January 1936.

Mark Sensen, 20 October 1995

National anthem

The Belgian national anthem La Brabançonne mentions the flag in the first stanza (French version, there exists also a Dutch version):

Après des siècles d'esclavage,
Le Belge sortant du tombeau
A reconquis par son courage
Son nom, ses droits et son drapeau.
Et ta main souveraine et fière,
Désormais, peuple indompté,
Grava sur ta vieille bannière :
Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté !
Grava sur ta vieille bannière :
Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté !
Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté !
Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté !

English translation:

After centuries in slavery,
The Belgian coming out of the tomb
Reconquered through his courage
His name, his rights and his flag.
And your sovereign and proud hand,
Now, undaunted people,
Engraved on your old banner:
The King, the Law, the Freedom!
Engraved on your old banner:
The King, the Law, the Freedom!
The King, the Law, the Freedom!

The Belgian national anthem is said to have been written by Jenneval in the café L'Aigle d'Or (The Golden Eagle), located rue de la Fourche in Brussels, during the September 1830 revolution.
Jenneval's real name was Louis-Alexandre Dechet. He was an actor in the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, the place were the revolution started on 25 August 1830. He joined the revolutionary army and was killed near Lier on 18 October 1830.
Jenneval wrote three successive versions of his Chant national belge, based on the evolution of the political situation. In 1860, the song was modified by Prime Minister Charles Rogier, who mitigated the parts of the song aiming William of Nassau, Prince of Orange. The 1860 version is used today as the Belgian national anthem.

The music of the anthem was written in September 1830 by François van Campenhout. The first public performance of the anthem took place in the Théâtre de la Monnaie in the beginning of October 1830. The original music was slightly modified to fit Rogier's amended text.

There is no official version of La Brabançonne, although several commissions have been appointed to establish an official version, to no avail. A decree from the Ministry of the Interior dated 8 August 1921 states that only the fourth stanza of Rogier's version can be considered as official, either in French or Dutch.

There is a Brabançonne monument located on place Surlet de Chokier in Brussels. Parts of the French and Dutch words of the national anthem are engraved on the monument.

Source: Belgian government

Ivan Sache, 5 May 2003

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