Amsterdam’s 2:3 flag has equal red, black, and red horizontal bands. Three upright white saltires—St. Andrew’s crosses—run across the center of the black band.
Design structure
The flag translates the city’s shield into a horizontal rectangle. Its black center band carries three evenly spaced white saltires, while equal red bands fill the upper and lower thirds.
Display colors
HEX #EC0000 / asset screen valueHEX #000000 / RGB 0, 0, 0HEX #FFFFFF / RGB 255, 255, 255Construction notes
Divide a 2:3 rectangle into three equal horizontal bands. Place three identical white diagonal crosses at equal intervals along the black band. The crosses belong to the city’s heraldic tradition and should not be replaced with letterforms or copied from the separately protected municipal corporate logo.
Historical record
The three crosses long predate the modern municipal flag and appear in Amsterdam’s arms. The flag was already used before the council formally adopted it on 5 February 1975. The city describes the shield and its general cross motif as belonging to the city as a whole, distinct from its protected corporate identity.
Source trail
City of Amsterdam: city arms, crosses, and usage rights ↗
Limits of the construction guidance
The imported construction notes describe the arrangement: a 2:3 rectangle, three equal horizontal bands and three identical white diagonal crosses spaced along the black band. They do not supply exact cross dimensions, stroke widths, gaps or margins. The description therefore does not provide a complete manufacturing pattern.
The artwork’s retained provenance describes it as a Dutch municipal design locally simplified from a public-domain Commons rendering. It is reference artwork, not a verified official production specification. Dimensions measured from that illustration would describe the local drawing; they would not establish official dimensions or customary manufacturing practice. No customary manufacturing tolerances are documented in the supplied record.
All displayed HEX and RGB values, including red #EC0000, black #000000 / RGB 0, 0, 0 and white #FFFFFF / RGB 255, 255, 255, are screen values. They are not established physical color standards for fabric, ink or other materials. Neither the illustration nor these display values certify a manufactured flag’s conformity.
Evidence behind the record
The imported section and its three legacy citations are retained. Their generic locators preserve the source trail but do not identify which passage establishes each claim. The imported “Confidence / High” label should therefore not be read as verification of every historical or construction detail.
Formal adoption and earlier use. The imported record gives 5 February 1975 as formal adoption and separately states that the flag was already in use. These statements are preserved; the date is not presented as the beginning of use. Neither claim is established by a claim-specific passage in the three linked pages checked for this proposal. A citation to the relevant council decision or a directly supporting historical record remains needed. Earlier use needs its own evidence rather than an inference from the adoption date.
Heraldic connection. The city’s “Het merk gebruiken” page, under “Wapenschild Amsterdam,” describes red bands on either side of a black band containing St. Andrew’s crosses. This supports the record’s connection to the city shield. That page also distinguishes the shield’s crosses from the municipal corporate logo. It does not establish the chronology of the crosses, the flag’s adoption date or its complete construction geometry.
Protocol and archive scope. The city’s flag protocol page lists the Amsterdam flag for the city’s birthday on 27 October. This supports a specific municipal display occasion, not the 1975 adoption date or construction dimensions. The linked High Council of Nobility archive introduction is general archive context, not an identified Amsterdam flag decision or a claim-specific register entry.
Construction and metadata. The summary, Netherlands region and 2:3 proportions reproduce information already present in the imported record. The period field preserves its distinction between formal adoption and earlier use. No independently verified field citation is added for those values. An authoritative flag description or dimensioned drawing would be needed to establish official geometry; exact cross sizes, strokes, margins and physical color standards remain unresolved. Claim-specific citations added here support only the passages identified, without replacing any legacy citation.