Talk:Flag of the Netherlands

fonzy
Itresting but my much rtaher have an article written in otr own words.-fonzy
 * Well fonzy, I don't think many people would like to read wikipedia if it was written in your words. :P - Golradir 18:36, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

"Orange"
I see that the top stripe is traditionally referred to as "orange", although it is in fact colored red. This discrepancy should be handled better: It's confusing to consistently see a red stripe called orange, particularly in the opening paragraph and in the picture description. AFAIK heraldic descriptions are supposed to be unambiguous, so someone reading "orange" would certainly paint a different flag than the one depicted. I propose to replace orange with red (traditionally called "orange") or something of the like. --BjKa 10:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Just for the record : the top stripe is not traditionally referred to as "orange".--MWAK (talk) 14:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That's correct, here in the Netherlands the top stripe is traditionally referred to as "red". The orange-white-blue was the Prince's flag (referring to the Prince of Orange, aka. William the Silent) used as flag by the Dutch Republic from 1581 to 1795. But that flag really had an orange top stripe, and also the blue was brighter. Pasted the pictures here to clarify. Jaho (talk) 22:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Dutch Flag in America
Q: Why is the Dutch tri-coloured flag used commonly in North America with the world "sale" on it? (Sale written on the white portion of the flag). Does anyone know the reasoning for this? And why the Netherlands flag. - Thanks! User:Themepark
 * It's not really a Dutch flag. In fact, it's not really a flag at all, but rather an elongated banner, featuring the colours of the USA flag, the Stars and Stripes (which coincidentally are the same as the colours of the Dutch flag). I assume it's used by to liven up the display and to make people subconsciously associate spending their money with patriotism, thereby increasing sales. Shinobu 02:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Hm, dunno... but we Dutchies really love bargains (just think of Dutch party). Could that be the reason? ;) Jaho (talk) 22:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Dutch Navy 'double' flag. Red-white-blue-red-white-blue?
Q: On some paintings, the Dutch navy flag is pictured to be 'double', red-white-blue-red-white-blue. See, for example the Four Days Battle (click the top paining, and take a close look). Some games, like Age of Empires III, also uses that 'double' flag. Anyone an idea why? (I wanted to list more painings, but as usual, when you need them, you can't find them.) Hfodf 00:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC) (Quick edit: see also: painting: Third Anglo-Dutch War.)
 * See FOTW's page about the Prince's Flag on this. Nothing conclusive about exactly why, though, but a bit more background. Niels |en talk-nl talk (faster response)| 01:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Oldest Tricolor
I removed a cite-needed phrase naming this flag at the oldest tricolor in continuous use. It had been tagged as such for half a year now. Depending on how one imagines that honorific, it is either false or at least misleading. The Union Jack has been around for considerably longer as far as national flags go, and even if you are to consider the flag's origins, the Dutch flag has gone through many changes since the UJ found its current form. I haven't bothered to check on any others, but there only needs to be one to prove that assertion false. :) Needless to say, please correct me if I'm wrong. --BDD 23:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, the Union Jack is not a tricolour (which is not simply a flag with three colours) — and was only a (rarely used) naval, not a national, flag between 1606 and 1707. The only other candidate for the title is the flag of Hungary, the use of which has, obviously, been far less continuous, apart from the problem whether its early application as a national symbol can be proven.--MWAK (talk) 07:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Cross of Burgundy
The text describes the cross of Burgundy as a saltire "with flames issuing from the intersection". That's the Burgundian badge of the firesteel and the flint with sparks, that at times was part of the Burgundian ragged saltire, especially of the earliest types. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.142.175.22 (talk) 10:09, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "http://www.warflag.com/flags/medieval/burgflag.shtml" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.142.175.22 (talk) 10:15, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "http://pics.myarmoury.com/pavise01a.html"

Charlemagne claim
What's the evidence for that? -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:27, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

cumbersome name
If we have Flag of France, Flag of Germany and Flag of Belgium, why the contorted name here?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 16:49, 13 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Netherlands are different entities; the latter is a constituent country of the former. The red-white-blue tricolor is the flag of both. However, "Netherlands" is also the short-form name of the Kingdom (confusingly), so that would be a reason to move this article to per WP:COMMONNAME. SiBr4 ("CyberFour") (talk) 17:33, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was move per request as the common name and once that is more suitably inclusive of its dual use.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Flag of the Kingdom of the Netherlands → Flag of the Netherlands – move this article to Flag of the Netherlands per WP:COMMONNAME, discussion above. Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 15:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:34, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Weak support, though it should be made clear in the lead that this is the flag of both the KoNL and the Netherlands. SiBr4 (talk) 17:54, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per COMMONNAME  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 07:52, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Endlessly "similar" flags
The section titled Flag of the Netherlands seems wide open for uncited claims of close resemblance, editorially perceived similarities and whatnot. It would seem that any and every flag that uses stripes (horizontal or vertical) of similar colour has been included; but on what grounds? Wikipedia should rely on citation, citation and (just to make it clear) citation to reliable sources. I thought of tagging for citation; but perhaps the whole section should go. Haploidavey (talk) 12:12, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Several down, and more to go; I'm going to boldly remove all such at one fell swoop, notes and all. The tenuous notion that the Russian flag "might" be based on the Flag of the Netherlands could well be relevant to the Russian flag article; but not (imo) vice versa, let alone all those Russian flag dependent pan-slavic and other variants. Objectors are welcome to restore any deleted material as long as its cited to a reliable source. Haploidavey (talk) 19:49, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

West India Company
I have seen four different versions of the Dutch West India Company on Commons:


 * File:Flag of the Dutch West India Company.png, used on the articles of several South American colonies
 * File:Flag of the Dutch West India Company.svg, used on this article and the articles of African and other various colonies
 * File:Flag of the Dutch West Indies Company.svg, which is used on the article of the Company itself
 * File:Flag of the Dutch West Indies Company.png, which is not used anywhere on the English Wikipedia

I'm not suggesting any of them be deleted (they have various usage states in other Wikipedias) but should there be a standard used by the English Wikipedia? My suggestion would be the first, as it appears most similar to the logo of the East India Company, but the actual logo of the West India Company is nowhere to be found on its article. pwnzor.ak (talk) 23:15, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

From what time was "orange" considered a colour different from "red"?
It appears the earliest records of the colour name "orange" in the context of the Prince of Orange dates to the 1580s. I think Jacob Duym wrote in 1584, describing the armbands worn by the Dutch officers in 1574 as "orange". The same author also seems to equate "orange" and "red", at least in terms of heraldry.

Apparently, the colour adjective derives from Portuguese cor-de-laranja "colour of the orange", shortended to laranja, in the 16th century.  The French adjective orange is first recorded in 1553. It would have been available in the 1570s, but it was clearly a neologism. It is perfectly possible that the heraldic "red" used by William was in called "orange" in a kind of canting, or that William himself adopted the pun and chose to make his heraldic "red" more "orange". The earliest reference cited by Rey appears to be the description of the procession of William entering Ghent in 1577 in Flemish verse by Luc de Heere, printed in 1578. It would be worth looking for the word "orange" or "oranje" there, as it might be the earliest reference to the colour used "heraldically" by the House of Orange. --dab (𒁳) 14:09, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It was indeed a pun, though not as much funny as it was symbolic. The "Prince of Orange" title eventually goes back all the way to the Celtic God Arausio giving his name to the later city of Aurenja (Orange), and was completely unrelated to the fruit or the colour. But before that, red and orange weren't really conflated because terms like geoluread already existed in Old English (compare Dutch geelrood), both meaning "yellow-red", and saffron was used in more fanciful situations. However, one should remember that most sources on the origin of the word "orange" relate to the English version. Apparently the need to name the colour was not that great until the fruit itself turned up. When it came to Old French, the Institute for the Dutch Language states that the "n" in "naranje" was lost due to it being seen as part of the indefinite article (un(e) in French, an in English, een in Dutch), a phenomenon called rebracketing. This would have happened centuries before the 1500s. A form of the word "orange" was already used for a colour in a 13th century Middle Dutch text, and it almost certainly got to Dutch through French. Since the Netherlands was strongly influenced by both Spanish and French language and culture in the centuries preceding their independence, it's nigh impossible for the colour to have only gained traction so late. Most likely is that "oranje" was already well established and was immediately conflated with the French "orange" title and location, which explains why he was called "Willem van Oranje" and not "Willem van Orange". Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 15:17, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

French flag
There is no source to claim it has inspired the French flag, the Britannica source doesn't even mention the flag of Paris. The French gouvernement gives a much proper explanation of the history of the flag, that is not derived from the Dutch flag, but from the flag of Paris and from monarchy. https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/coming-to-france/france-facts/symbols-of-the-republic/article/the-french-flag Esteban Outeiral Dias (talk) 15:53, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

English
Anon 103.167.15.252 (talk) 12:50, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

symbolism and history
I see there's a section here with a description of the meanings of the colours, that isn't in the Dutch version of this article. Is this a real fact? There seem to be many contradictory sources around. In the article for Flag it is mentioned under Flag that the Dutch flag came about through cloth/wool trade, which then isn't mentioned in this article at all. How can I figure out which explaination to use for the colours of the flag? Frog2D (talk) 14:23, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Visibility at sea
I have added a topic with this title to the article Prince's Flag. My understanding, and that of others based on an Internet search, is that visibility at sea was a reason for changing the colours of the princes flag into what became the Netherlands flag. It was simply a question of needing greater contrast against the sky. Please add any discussion to the princes flag article rather than duplicating it here. Humpster (talk) 07:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Why is there no mention of the flag of Luxembourg?
It's practically identical. The exact shades of blue and red is a bit different, but that's not something most people notice, and flags are almost never represented with the exact correct colour shades, anyway. 94.255.132.223 (talk) 13:52, 21 April 2024 (UTC)