Flag of Portugal

Portuguese Republic

Other names	Bandeira das Quinas (Flag of the quinas ("Quina" being a Portuguese word meaning "a group of five")), Bandeira Verde-Rubra (Green-Red Flag)
Use	National flag and ensign
Proportion	2:3[1]
Adopted	30 June 1911; 112 years ago (1911-06-30)[2]
Design	A 2:3 vertically striped bicolour of green and red, with the lesser coat of arms of Portugal centered over the colour boundary
Use	National colour of military units
Proportion	12:13
Adopted	30 June 1911
Design	As above, but evenly striped (1:1) and with the greater coat of arms, displaying a white scroll with the motto "Esta é a ditosa pátria minha amada" ("This is my beloved blissful homeland"), taken from Os Lusíadas, III, 21, v. 1

The flag of Portugal (Portuguese: Bandeira de Portugal) is the national flag of the Portuguese Republic. It is a rectangular bicolour with a field divided into green on the hoist, and red on the fly. The lesser version of the national coat of arms of Portugal (armillary sphere and Portuguese shield) is centered over the colour boundary at equal distance from the upper and lower edges. Its presentation was done on 1 December 1910, after the downfall of the constitutional monarchy on 5 October 1910. However, it was only on 30 June 1911, that the official decree approving this flag as the official flag was published. This new national flag for the First Portuguese Republic, was selected by a special commission whose members included Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, João Chagas and Abel Botelho. The conjugation of the new field color, especially the use of green, was not traditional in the Portuguese national flag's composition and represented a radical republican-inspired change that broke the bond with the former monarchical flag. Since a failed republican insurrection on 31 January 1891, red and green had been established as the colours of the Portuguese Republican Party and its associated movements, whose political prominence kept growing until it reached a culmination period following the Republican revolution of 5 October 1910. In the ensuing decades, these colours were popularly propagandised, green represented the hope of the nation and the colour red represented the blood of those who died defending it, this happened to endow them with a more patriotic and dignified, therefore less political, sentiment.

The sphere and shield in the middle of the current flag are an integral part of the design, which has historically been centred on the royal arms, usually over fields of blue and white. Since the country's foundation, the standard developed from the blue cross-on-white armorial square banner of King Afonso I, through progressively more complex designs, which did incorporate green and red, to the liberal monarchy's arms over a blue-and-white rectangle. In between, major changes associated with determinant political events contributed to its evolution into the current design.