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No. 074 / 195Flag of Holy See
Capital
Vatican City
Continent
Europe
Flag adopted
1929(r1)
Designer
Not individually credited

Holy See

What the source says

Referenced, awaiting primary-source review
Adopted on 7 June 1929, when Pope Pius XI signed the Lateran Treaty with Italy, creating the new independent state of Vatican City. It took its colours from the materials of the two keys (yellow for gold, white for silver). [The keys and tiara are] the emblem of the Holy See. It is one of only two national flags that use a 1:1 aspect ratio, along with the flag of Switzerland.
(r1) Flag of Vatican City (Wikipedia (English)), read on 2026-07-17. States the adoption year, which colors the flag has, what the colors mean and the symbolism and history on this page.

Referenced, not verified: a secondary work states this, and the document that constitutes the flag has not been read for this entry. What the marks mean.

Colors and meaning

  • Yellow(r1) #FFE000

    Gold, from the material of one of the two keys of Saint Peter(r1)

  • White(r1) #FFFFFF

    Silver, from the material of the other key(r1)

Symbolism and history(r1)

A yellow-and-white vertical bicolor bears the crossed gold and silver Keys of Saint Peter beneath the Papal tiara, the emblem of the Holy See, on its white half, adopted in 1929 when the Lateran Treaty created Vatican City; it is one of only two national flags with a 1:1 square ratio, alongside Switzerland.

Most similar flags

The 6 closest of the 194 other national flags, ranked by a similarity index computed from the flag images themselves. The number is that index, 0–100 — not a claim that the two flags are “X% identical”.

Computed at build time: each flag is rasterised to 64x48, and the score is 0.55 × colour overlap + 0.45 × structure. A different weighting would rank these differently. How the index works.

References — not verification

Further reading: Flag of Vatican City on Wikipedia

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