Belarus

The national flag of Belarus is an unequal red-green bicolour with a red-on-white ornament pattern placed at the hoist (staff) end. The current design was introduced in 2012 by the State Committee for Standardisation of the Republic of Belarus, and is adapted from a design approved in a May 1995 referendum. It is a modification of the 1951 flag used while the country was a republic of the Soviet Union. Changes made to the Soviet-era flag were the removal of communist symbols – the hammer and sickle and the red star – as well as the reversal of the colours in the ornament pattern. Since the 1995 referendum, several flags used by Belarusian government officials and agencies have been modelled on this national flag.

The basic design of the national flag of Belarus was first described in Presidential Decree No. 214 of 7 June 1995. The flag is a rectangular cloth consisting of two horizontal stripes: a red upper stripe (which was inspired by the flag of the Soviet Union) covering two-thirds of the flag's height, and additional green lower stripe covering one-third. An additional vertical red-on-white traditional Belarusian decorative pattern, which occupies one-ninth of the flag's length, is placed against the flagstaff. The flag's ratio of width to length is 1:2. The flag does not differ significantly from the flag of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Byelorussian SSR), other than the removal of the hammer and sickle and the red star, as well as the reversal of red and white in the hoist pattern, from white-on-red to red-on-white. While there is no official interpretation for the colours of the flag, an explanation given by President Alexander Lukashenko is that red represents freedom and the sacrifice of the nation's forefathers, while green represents life. In addition to the 1995 decree, "STB 911-2008: National Flag of the Republic of Belarus" was published by the State Committee…