flag of Bohemia

File:Nejstarší dochované barevné vyobrazení znaku Čech, hrad Gozzoburg v Kremži.jpeg]]

"The colors of the flag, white and red, were derived from the coat of arms of the King of Bohemia (silver lion on a red field) which was granted to the king Vladislaus I in the 12th century. This quickly became the coat of arm of the whole kingdom."Aptly expressed by František Palacký in his Dějiny národu českého v Čechách a v Moravě I–V ("The History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia"), 1836–1867: "Známé povídačky o rozdávání nových erbův rodinám českým, ba i království českému, v ležení před Milánem, nechceme zde ani připomínati, ana sama v sobě hloupá jest a od jiných před námi již dávno vyvrácena byla." (cited from: Rostislav Nový: K počátkům feudální monarchie v Čechách II. Časopis národního musea 1978; for the history of the coats of arms of historical Czech lands: Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, see the entry on Czech Wikipedia: Heraldické znaky českých zemí.)

The oldest surviving full colour depiction of the arms of Bohemia is represented by the fresco in the hall of the castle of Gozzoburg in Krems an der Donau, that comes from the early 1270s.{{cite book

| last = Krejčík

| first = Tomáš

| last2 = Pícha

| first2 = František

| chapter= Český a moravský znak ve znakové galerii v Gozzoburgu v Kremsu

| location = Brno

| title = Genealogické a heraldické informace 2008 : Moravská genealogická a heraldická společnost, o. s. 2009

| volume = 13 | issue = 28

| year = 2009

| pages = 49–57

| issn = 0862-8963

| language = cs

}} A further depiction can be found in the manuscript of abbes Kunigunde from the 1310s.{{cite web|title=Sbírka Národní knihovny ČR |url=http://ces.mkcr.cz/cz/psb.php?idpsb=2463 |website=ces.mkcr.cz |publisher=Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic: Central Registry of Museum-type Collections |access-date=12 January 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150120203123/http://ces.mkcr.cz/cz/psb.php?idpsb=2463 |archive-date=20 January 2015 }}

The bicolor white-red banners were therefore carried into battle by the armies of the Bohemian kings and in the 19th century the colors were adopted by the Czech national movement. But when the goals of the movement were fulfilled in 1918 by the restoration of the independent Czech state, the need for the significant symbols, including a flag which was not identical to that of neighbouring Poland, led to the approval of the new flag of Czechoslovakia in 1920. This new flag still included the white and red horizontal stripes from the flag of Bohemia.

In 1990, the Bohemian flag was adopted as the official flag of the Czech Republic, then part of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (ČSFR, 1990–1992).Constitutional act on the state symbols of the Czech Republic 67/1990 Coll. The flag was adopted in reaction to the adoption of separate Slovak symbols. However, the Czech flag was used much less than the wider flag of Czechoslovakia, whereas the flag of Slovakia (then without coat of arms and thus identical to flag of the World War II Slovak RepublicConstitutional act on the name, coat of arms, flag, seal and anthem of the Slovak Republic 50/1990 Coll.) was widely used in Slovakia. This difference mirrored prevailing separatist tendencies in the Slovak Republic and federalist tendencies in the Czech Republic. Another problem, again, was the Bohemian flag's similarity to the flag of neighbouring Poland, because the only difference was the proportion 2:3 (Polish flag is 5:8). For these reasons, Czech politicians decided to preserve the flag of Czechoslovakia as the symbol of the state with which most of Czech society was identified.

Since 1993, the flag of Bohemia has had no legal status and is only rarely seen today in the Czech Republic.

{{gallery|width=120|height=120|noborder=yes|whitebg=no

|File:Krems Gozzoburg - Wappensaal Innenraum.jpg|The hall with coats of arms in Gozzoburg Castle in Krems

|File:Royal banner of the Kingdom of Bohemia.svg|Banner of arms of Bohemia

|File:Flag of Bohemia.svg|Bohemian flag (from about the 19th century)

|File:Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Bohemia.svg|Arms of the Kingdom of Bohemia by Austrian heraldist Hugo Gerard Ströhl (1851–1919)

|File:Banner of the Bohemian Coat of Arms.svg|Banner of arms of Bohemia (with modern design of the coat of arms of Bohemia)

|File:Bohemian Olympic Flag (1912).svg|Flag used by the Bohemian team at the 1912 Olympic Games: the arms of the Kingdom of Bohemia displayed on a white field.

}}

• Flag of Moravia

{{reflist|24em}}

• [http://flagspot.net/flags/cz_bh.html Entry on Bohemia from Flags of the World]

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Category:12th-century introductions

Category:Flags of the Czech Republic

Category:Obsolete national flags

Category:Red and white flags

Category:Kingdom of Bohemia