Two crosses of St George and two squares with the Catalan stripes: the flag of Barcelona is the coat of arms of the city, which it has used since the 14th century.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Proportions
2:33 wide for every 2 high. 989 flags in the catalogue share it.
Properties
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
Use
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.
Adopted
20046 April 2004 · 22 years ago
Colours
red
white
yellow
Reference shades: the official one may vary slightly.
Coat of arms
YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.
Origin
Coat of arms of Barcelona
Designer
Ferran de Segarra i de Siscar (1906 model)
Take a closer look
The quartered field
1
The crosses
2
The bars
How it is described
The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.
Vexillological description
It is a rectangular field with a 2:3 ratio divided into four equal quarters, like the coat of arms of the city.
White quarters
the upper one next to the flagpole and the lower one on the fly side (the free side). Each carries a red cross that reaches the edges, with a thickness of 1/18 of the length of the flag.
Yellow quarters
the other two, each with nine equal vertical bars: five yellow and four red.
Colours
Pantone 186 red and Pantone 1235 yellow, according to the city council’s graphic standards.
What it carries
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
By the early 14th century they already appear together in four quarters, as on the tombstone…
1714
It headed the city until its fall, on 11 September 1714
1906
Nobody approved it in writing until 3 May 1906
1992
Under Francoism it is reduced to two bars, and stayed that way until after the 1992 Olympic Games
1996
Even so, between 1996 and 2004 it changed four times
2002
The courts annulled it in 2002
2004
It is the design that was restored in 2004
The full story
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Barcelona has four squares: two white with the red cross of St George and two yellow with the red stripes of Catalonia. It is the coat of arms of the city put onto cloth, and its drawing is nearly seven hundred years old. Even so, between 1996 and 2004 it changed four times.
How it came about
The cross was the sign of the city, and the stripes that of the king, who was also Count of Barcelona. By the early 14th century they already appear together in four quarters, as on the tombstone of Santa Maria del Mar of 1329. The militia of the city went out to fight behind this flag.
Nobody approved it in writing until 3 May 1906, when the city council adopted the model of the archivist Ferran de Segarra, with four red bars on each yellow quarter. It is the design that was restored in 2004.
How it has changed
The underlying drawing has barely moved, but the number of bars, and sometimes the whole flag, has.
The same symbol on Mediterranean blue. The yellow won, being more faithful to the Catalan colours, and the blue became a festive flag that almost nobody used.
What it means
Red cross on white
the sign of the city since the 13th century, today called the cross of St George. It is the same cross as England’s, which appears inside the flag of the United Kingdom.
Red bars on yellow
the sign of the Counts of Barcelona and Kings of Aragon, the senyera of Catalonia.
Four quarters
they alternate the two signs just as the coat of arms of the city does.
Fun facts
Four flags in eight years
Between 1996 and 2004 Barcelona had four official flags. The vexillologist Sebastià Herreros only found a similar rhythm in Afghanistan.
The idea came from the TV in Girona
According to La Vanguardia, in 1996 the mayor Pasqual Maragall saw on television the flag of Girona, with the Catalan stripes and the municipal symbol on top, and that is where he got the striped one from.
Nine months with the senyera
When the courts annulled the 1996 flag, the mayor Joan Clos hung the senyera as a provisional flag, from July 2003 to April 2004.
The flag that fell by itself
In 1461 and 1468 the flag of the city, hung high up on the cathedral, fell without anyone touching it. Both times they hung it even higher.
A monk nobody knew
Foreign books from 1719 and 1769 say the flag of Barcelona was blue with a monk dressed in black. There is no trace of it in the city: it looks like a mistake copied from book to book.
Location
Buy the flag
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Buy the flag on AmazonAffiliate link: if you buy, Wiki Banderas receives a small commission.
Municipality facts
How many people live there, how big it is and what borders it.
Population (2025)
1,731,649
Area
101.3 km²
pop./km²
17,094
Elevation
9 m
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