The Luxembourg flag, and why it isn't the Dutch one

Luxembourg’s flag is a pub-quiz trap. Red, white and blue in three horizontal stripes, just like the Netherlands at first glance. The difference is the shade of blue, and there’s an official reason for it. Here’s the flag, the lion that sometimes keeps it company, the coat of arms the lion comes from, the anthem and the motto, all symbols the country protects by law.

Red, white and sky blue

Today’s flag has three horizontal stripes, red, white and sky blue. The government’s official portal admits quite openly that there was a resemblance problem with the Dutch flag and that it was solved pragmatically. The Dutch blue is ultramarine; Luxembourg’s is sky blue, Pantone 299C. Put them side by side and Luxembourg’s looks lighter and brighter.

The cloth itself is far older than the modern country. The first known flag was carried by Count William of Luxembourg in 1123, striped horizontally and probably yellow and red. The coat of arms, the flag and the anthem are all protected by law today, the arms and flag by a law of 1972 and the anthem by one of 1993.

The Roude Léiw, the other flag

There’s a second flag worth recognising, a red lion on white and blue stripes. This is the «Roude Léiw», the red lion from the coat of arms. According to the official portal, since 2007 the government has accepted it as a civil flag within Luxembourg. It doesn’t replace the national flag, which remains the tricolour. The day the country brings its symbols out in force, with a parade and a Te Deum, is covered in Luxembourg National Day.

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A 13th-century coat of arms

The lion comes from the coat of arms, fixed by Count Henry V between 1235 and 1239. The official heraldic description is ten stripes of silver and azure with a red lion, armed, tongued and crowned in gold, its forked tail crossed in saltire. There are three versions, lesser, middle and greater arms, and the dynasty’s greater arms, revised in 2001, carry the Bourbon-Parma shield at the centre. Who that family is today is in Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

Ons Heemecht, an anthem in Luxembourgish

The anthem is Ons Heemecht, «Our Homeland». It’s made up of the first and last verses of a Luxembourgish poem by Michel Lentz, written in 1859 and set to music by Jean-Antoine Zinnen, and it was first performed in public at a large ceremony in Ettelbruck in 1864. I like the way it opens with the landscape rather than the nation. It names the Alzette winding through meadows, the Sûre breaking through rocks and the vines along the Moselle. The last verse asks God to protect the country from a foreign yoke. The official portal describes it as a stirring appeal for peace and freedom that expresses the country’s joy at having found its independence in calm and prosperity. The government also publishes a French translation, «Le Sol natal», by the Alliance pour la propagation de la langue française, which is what my rough English version in the table is based on. The anthem, the flag and the arms are also the three symbols the state itself lists, in that order, as the emblems of its identity and sovereignty.

It’s also one of the first literary texts in Luxembourgish, alongside De Feierwon and De Reenert. What sort of language that is, and how to say hello in it, is in Luxembourgish language.

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«We want to remain what we are»

The motto associated with the country is «Mir wölle bleiwe wat mir sin», which the government translates as «we want to remain what we are». Its pages show it as an inscription, and that’s how I quote it, and I won’t invent an origin that no official source I’ve read provides. To see why a line like that carries so much weight in a country that spent four centuries under foreign rulers, read the history of Luxembourg.

Where to see the flag

In the capital you’ll see it on the front of the Chamber of Deputies and inside the cathedral, beside the altar. The photo the government uses to present the flag was taken in front of the Gëlle Fra on Place de la Constitution, and that’s the spot I’d pick for yours.

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