Flags of the World #10: Austria!
Hello fellow Steemians and welcome to my review of the Austrian flag (not Australian, Austrian! In Europe!) This is the 10th (can't believe we are in double digits already!) flag I will be covering in my series to cover most of the flags of the world! I hope you stay along for the ride, enjoy, learn something new and hopefully you will also start enjoying vexillology (the world needs more people getting into vexillology trust me!)
The plan is to go ahead and try to cover most of the flags in alphabetical order! So we still have long ways to go! Hope you stay for the ride!
Today's Flag is the Flag of Austria!
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The flag of Austria is a horizontal triband of equal sized conformed on three colors, red on top and bottom and white in the middle. The flag is based on the Babenberg dynasty coat of arms and it was adopted as a national flag in 1918.
Babanberg Dynasty Coat of Arms
Meaning
The meaning behind the Austrian flag is really unique, there's not a precise meaning to each color but rather, the whole flag comes from a legend that dates back to the year of 1191!
The year was 1191 and Duke Leopold V was in the middle of the third crusade, this crusade was one of the bloodiest crusades and its objective was to recover the sacred city of Jerusalem (spoiler alert, they failed! sorry, the movie has been out for almost 900 years, this shouldn't really count as a spoiler at this point). After the long and arduous battle of Ptolemais, the Duke had slain so many enemy soldiers, that his whole body was blood soaked, the only thing that remained clean was his white garment under his sword's belt.
Thats where the white and red colors, from the Duke's blood soaked body and his tiny white sword belt. This makes the Austrian flag the 2nd oldest flag in Europe with only Denmark beating it in first place.
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Other Flags
There's an alternative version of the Austrian flag, which is personally my favorite version of this flag, because i'm extremely biased towards eagles in flags.
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Alternate Version of the Austrian Flag
Then there's the Austrian Flag when they where under control of the Habsburg Dynasty, Its a relatively simple flag, but if you are interested in European and Austrian history and don't know anything about the Habsburgs you should go read about them, because they where extremely powerful and always controlled something in Europe for at least a thousand years in Europe before falling out of grace at the end of World War I. The Habsburgs where so powerful, that to this day there's still an Habsburg heir apparent for the throne of Austria just in case the monarchy returns.
You can not talk about Austrian flags without mentioning the Autro-Hungarian Empire flag! This is a really interesting flags which tries to combine both the flag of Austria and the flag of Hungary into the same design, but also has both flags in the flag. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was disbanded at the end of World War I in the treaty of Versailles.
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Facts
Most of the country within the Alps Mountain range making it a harsh to inhabit area, this creates an interesting phenomenon where 25% of the population of the country live in its capital, the city of Vienna.
After the end of World War II, the country pledged to eternal neutrality, just like their neighbors in Switzerland.
Austria is a member of the European Union but its not a member of NATO.
There's an Austrian restaurant that has been operating continuously for more than 1200 years, its name is St. Peter Stiftskeller.
Location
Austria is located in east central Europe, This map shows the location of Austria and its location within the European Union.
Thanks for reading this far down! I hope you enjoyed the read :-D, Help me improve by leaving a comment with suggestions and if you liked it please upvote, reesteem and follow me for more in the future! Here's a list of my other posts if you feel like checking them out!
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Some of the flags in this article where sourced from Pixabay, a royalty free image source!
The picture showing the location of the country was sourced from Wikipedia
I love your flag series! Here is another fun fact for you. My country Croatia was also part of Austro-Hungarian Empire. We had a 100 years deal with Austria which allows students to transfer between universities in the two countries with no limitations. The deal is going to expire this year.
I already follow you with my other account @tripdespider, and you will get an upvote from that one as soon as vp regenerates, it is worth 0 under 80% and your series deserves to get at all I can give you!
I knew the fact you mention about Croatia, I really enjoy reading the history of old empires and the Austro Hungarian empire and the possibility of the Danube Federation of Franz Ferdinand had not died always intrigued me :-D
I am making a larp where players act as representatives of the 5 major forces in Europe. They meet on a secret meeting 2 days after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and have to decide what is going to happen in Europe :D
I knew the fact you mention about Croatia, I really enjoy reading the history of old empires and the Austro Hungarian empire and the possibility of the Danube Federation of Franz Ferdinand had not died always intrigued me :-D
I knew the fact you mention about Croatia, I really enjoy reading the history of old empires and the Austro Hungarian empire and the possibility of the Danube Federation of Franz Ferdinand had not died always intrigued me :-D
The origin of the colours of the flag was pretty cool, quite a nice little history lesson! Your post was nice and easy to read as well. You broke it down nicely and packed it with some interesting facts.
You are right too, the eagle looks badass. Looks like it might have opposable thumbs too!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I had not noticed the thumbs lol
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I had not noticed the thumbs lol
This time the flag is created from one man's patriotism. Thank you Luna. I got to know Austria a little more. ^^
Patriotism can lead a great leader to do very heroic things!
exactly!
I have always been fascinated by Austria. It's one of the most recent proofs of how no empire lasts forever... such a great power from a hundred years back is now such a minor player in world affairs
You are right! No empire lasts forever.... all of them fall one way or another.
@lunaticpandora, you won't believe it, but we were just talking about Austria this morning over coffee, and looked up it's flag! We were talking about the KTM motorcycles being made in Austria. Talk about weird timing, eh?
Nice job on this article!
I'm going to have to try this restaurant if I ever visit. That would be a cool experience!
I've upvoted and resteemed this article as one of my daily post promotions for the @mitneb Curation Trail Project. It will be featured in the @mitneb Curation Trail Project Daily Report for 23 FEB 2018.
Cheers!
That's a weird coincidence :-D thanks mitneb!
You got a 1.14% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @lunaticpandora!
Want to promote your posts too? Check out the Steem Bot Tracker website for more info. If you would like to support the development of @postpromoter and the bot tracker please vote for @yabapmatt for witness!
a very good post, introducing the state symbol to steemit colleagues around the world. Can understand each other and understand about the state of Autria, red, white, red, slightly different from indonesia.we are red and white. greetings from us indonesia to Austria society.
Nice post
Great post as always.
Interesting. I never knew that bigger percentage lived in the capital. Thanks for writing this :D Upvoted