It all started in 1830, during the Belgian Revolution. To break free from the Netherlands, the insurgents adopted the colors black, yellow, and red. Originally, the flag had three horizontal stripes: red on top, yellow in the middle, and black at the bottom. This was the flag the revolutionaries carried while fighting in the streets of Brussels.
After the revolution, a problem arose: the horizontal stripes looked too similar to those of other countries, especially the Netherlands, with whom Belgium was still at war. To avoid confusion, the provisional government decided on the 23th of January 1831, to switch to vertical stripes, inspired by the French flag, a key symbol of revolution. However, the exact order of the colors was not yet standardized and varied in different representations.
It wasn’t until October 1831 that the final design was officially established: black closest to the flagpole, followed by yellow, and red on the outer edge.
A fun fact: the Belgian Constitution still lists the colors in the original order—red, yellow, and black. This is because the Constitution was adopted shortly after the first flag design and before the final change in late 1831.
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