Flag of Slovakia

The Slovak flag is one of the official state symbols of the Slovak Republic. You will find it in front of official buildings as well as on the shoulders of ice-hockey fans at the World Championships.

There are three equal horizontal bands of white, blue and red (top to bottom) exactly as on the Russian or Slovenian flag. These three colours are widely used on other national flags of Slavic origin: Russia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia, etc. The Russian and the Slovenian flags even have the same horizontal stripes, but the Russian flag has no shield, while the Slovenian emblem is slightly different from the Slovak one.

On the shield of the Slovak flag, a double cross can be seen in the middle-left position. Three mountains below the cross represent, according to some sources, the mountains of Matra, Fatra and Tatra. Only the latter two can be found in today's Slovakia. Matra is located in Hungary. Slovakia and Hungary were a part of common Hungarian Kingdom during centuries and the double-cross with three mountains was present in the Empire's state emblem.