The flag of Liechtenstein and the crown it owes to Haiti

Liechtenstein’s flag has one of the more endearing back stories in Europe. For decades it was plain blue and red, exactly like another country’s, and the clash came to light with an Olympic Games in the background. The fix was to add a crown. Look around Vaduz and you’ll notice that almost everything official carries that little golden hat in the corner.

What it looks like, exactly

Article 5 of the constitution says the national colours are blue and red. The detail is in the Wappengesetz, the 1982 act on state symbols, which describes two horizontal stripes of equal width, blue on top and red underneath. On the blue stripe, at the hoist end, sits the princely crown in gold, known in German as the Fürstenhut. The proportions are 3 by 5.

The blue and red didn’t come from nowhere. The Historisches Lexikon explains that they were secondary colours of the princely family, used on liveries and uniforms, and that they first appear as the country’s colours in 1793, on a design for a standard. The family’s own colours are different, gold and red, recorded in colour since the early 15th century.

Why the crown? The Haiti mix-up

This is the story most people are looking for. Liechtenstein’s flag, blue and red in horizontal stripes, was the same as Haiti’s. The Lexikon calls it, quite literally, a colour collision, and places the response straight after the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. The following year, 1937, the princely crown was added to the blue stripe to set the two apart.

I love it because it sums the country up. It didn’t change its colours or commission a new design; it added the emblem of its own monarchy and got on with things. The crown you see today is the same one that tops the Liechtenstein coat of arms, so flag and arms tell the same tale, of a country that identifies closely with its ruling family. The other state symbol worth knowing is the Liechtenstein national anthem, which shares its melody with the British one.

The other flag, gold and red

Wander round Vaduz and you’ll sometimes spot a yellow-and-red flag with no crown. It isn’t a mistake. It’s the princely family’s flag, which the 1982 law keeps separate from the national one. It only goes up when there’s a direct link to the house, and private individuals may fly it only at local festivities. For who the family are and where the name comes from, see the princely house of Liechtenstein.

The national flag, on the other hand, anyone may fly without asking, unless it’s for commercial use. Each of the eleven municipalities also has its own, striped in the colours of its coat of arms and handed out by the prince from the 1930s to the late 1950s. If you’re after the flag of Vaduz, it’s one of these and nothing like the national flag. The Vaduz arms date from 1978 and pair the prince’s hat with a church banner inherited from the old counts of Werdenberg-Sargans, and the town’s stripes follow those colours.

When you’ll see the most flags

The law sets official flag days. They are national day, constitution day, the anniversary of the prince’s accession, his birthday, his name day and Corpus Christi. On those dates public buildings fly the blue and red and householders are asked to follow suit. Parliament also flies the flag whenever it’s sitting, and the flag flies at the country’s borders too. The government building raises it for high-ranking foreign visitors and, on certain days of mourning, at half-mast with a black ribbon.

The best day to see them all at once is 15 August. Houses are hung with flags, there’s a state ceremony by the castle and a party in the streets. Everything that happens that day, including why there were no fireworks in 2026, is on my page for Liechtenstein National Day.

A castle myth

Plenty of people glance at the flags on Vaduz Castle to work out whether the prince is in residence. Here it doesn’t work. According to the princely house they’re raised each morning and lowered only in heavy wind, so they fly whoever is at home. For me the best photo of the flag in its natural setting is from the Städtle, with the castle up on its rock behind it.