Norway - Fact Sheet

The flag of Norway is a rectangular Scandinavian cross.¹. The cross is blue within a frimbriated white cross against a red field in the dimensions of 8:11.  The State and War (military) flag and ensign are a tongued swallowtail version of the state flag with the proportions of 16:27.

Flag adopted 13 July 1821, coat of arms adopted circa 1280
Date of current legislation for flag: 10 December 1898; proclaimed 17 July 1898
Flag legislation published: 15 December 1898; effective date: 15 December 1899²

The act was gazetted on 15th of December 1898, and the flag was hoisted a year later. The act is still in force, and the flags described by it are still seen. According to the spelling reforms early this century ('purging' the most Danish words), the customs now has a flag with the word "Toll" on it.

The Norwegian flag did not originate with this act of 1898, but by a resolution by the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, in 1821. This was not sanctioned by the King, and a period of flag confusion started. As a merchant flag it could only be used on shorter distances, because of the threat from the pirates of North Africa. They did not recognize the flag, and having them do so would be too expensive for the young Norwegian state. On longer distances, therefore, the Swedish flag was used. From 1844 to 1898/99, the Norwegian flag was used, but with a Union mark in the upper hoist corner, consisting of the combined Norwegian and Swedish colours (the 'herring salad'). This was subject to great controversy and intense conflicts between Norwegian nationalists and unionists (and the Swedes). This was ended, for the merchant flag (that was what mattered most), by the Act quoted above. However, the state flag (flag for Government institutions/buildings and for the Navy and military installations) continued to bear the union mark until the dissolution of the union on 7th of June 1905. The "pure" Norwegian state and naval flag was hoisted two days later.

Until 1814 Norway was united with Denmark, and used the Dannebrog. In 1814 however, Norway went through a political revolution, declared itself independent and adopted a constitution. A flag was also adopted, adding only the Norwegian lion (facing the fly) to the Danish flag. It was used as a merchant flag on shorter distances (north of Cape Finisterre in Spain) from 27th of February 1814 until 6th May 1821, when the new 'pure' Norwegian flag took over. In 1815, Norway was forced to accept the decision of the great powers that Norway should enter into a union with Sweden (a personal union with a common king and foreign policy, amalgamation in most areas was resisted). From 1815 to 1838, a Swedish flag with the Norwegian colours, red with a white saltire, in the upper hoist corner, was used. Of course, the red and white colours were unpopular with the Swedes, who saw a design to reunite Norway with Denmark in the use of them. The uniforms of Norwegian civil servants were also red, but the Swedes replaced them with blue ones, in their efforts to eradicate any visible sign of Norway's Danish history.

The flag of 1821 was the idea of Frederik Meltzer, Member of Parliament from Bergen. He got the idea of adding a blue cross to the Danish flag during a meeting in the parliament. The discussion on the flag circled around considerations about reflecting the past, that is the Danish colours, which enjoyed great popularity, and considerations that the union with Sweden should also be reflected in the flag. So we can say that the red and white came from the Danish flag, the blue from the Swedish. At the same time, the colour combination red, white, blue was also attractive to the Parliament because it reflected the colours of liberty, as in the flags of France, the USA, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. A story, still told today, that it was Frederik Meltzer's young son Gerhard that came up with the idea of the flag, is not true.³

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Colors of the flag

Semi-official PMS matches recommended by the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

–For printing:

Red: 032U
Blue: 281U

–For textiles:

Red: 186
Blue: 287⁴

The law regarding the Norwegian flag defines the colours as deep red and dark blue (“høirødt” og “mørkeblåt”) and white, with no reference to a specific colour system.

De facto standard used by Norwegian flag producers being PMS 200 and 281, the corresponding web colors using the official Pantone Matching System is #BA0C2F for PMS 200 (deep red) and #00205B for PMS 281 (dark blue).

Other sources for colors:
The Flag Manual - Beijing 2008 gives Pantone colors: PMS200 (red), and PMS281 (blue).

The Album des Pavillons 2000 [pay00] gives approximate colors in Pantone and CMYK systems:
Red: Pantone 032c, CMYK 0-90-90-0
Blue: Pantone 281c, CMYK 100-70-0-30
Yellow: Pantone 116 c, CMYK 0-10-95-0

Flags and Anthems Manual London 2012 [loc12] gives Pantone colors: PMS 200 (red), and PMS 281 (blue).

The Album des Pavillons 2023 already specifies the colors of the flags in three color systems:
Blue: Pantone 281c, CMYK 100-89-34-21, RGB 0-37-105
Red: Pantone 032c, CMYK 0-92-89-0, RGB 230-45-35
Yellow Pantone 116c, CMYK 0-19-93-0, RGB 255-206-0

Vexilla Mundi gives colors in Pantone system: PMS 200C (red), PMS White, and PMS 281C (blue).

Wikipedia refers to Flag Acts, illustrates the flag, provides construction details, to flag producers, to Flags and Anthems Manual London 2012 [loc12], to the Nordic Council, and to Norwegian foreign minister recommendation, and gives color values as follows:
Blue: Pantone 281 C, RAL 5026, CMYK 100-65-0-64, Hex #00205B, RGB 0-32-91
Red: Pantone 200 C, RAL 3020, CMYK 0-94-75-27, Hex #BA0C2F, RGB 186-12-47
White: Pantone White, RAL 9016, CMYK 0-0-0-0, Hex #FFFFFF, RGB 255-255-255

Flag Color Codes gives the following color values:
Norwegian Red: Hex #BA0C2F, RGB 186-12-47, CMYK 0-100-76-13, Pantone 200 C, RAL 3020
White: Hex #FFFFFF, RGB 255-255-255, CMYK 0-0-0-0, Pantone N/A, RAL N/A
Norwegian Blue: Hex #00205B, RGB 0-32-91, CMYK 100-78-0-57, Pantone 281 C, RAL 5026

Zoltan Horvath, 11 August 2025

Notably, the words "høirødt" and "mørkeblåt" (the latter in the pre-1917 spelling: "mørkeblaat") are included in the text the same way as the other words, just like "hvid" ("white"), without any kind of quote marks, suggesting that these are normal Norwegian words, not some specific ad hoc specification.
It’s interesting that red is specified to be “deep”, and that in turn that is not the same as “dark”, used contrastively to specify the shade of blue. Given the known pedigree of the Norwegian national flag, it’d be interesting to see how does this semantic shade of red compare with the two shades of red used for the Danish national flag, necessarily distinct.

As late as April 2018 the Norwegian foreign minister recommended that Norwegian flag manufacturers take the initiative to form a technical standard describing a guidance on which colours to use in the flag of Norway (https://www.regjeringen.no) after the debacle of an official recommendation for PMS 032 U and PMS 281 U, about which Norwegian flag producers complained that the Norwegian state propagates what they perceive as misinformation (https://www.flaggfabrikk.no)

Additionally, The Nordic Flag Society currently defines the red colour as PMS 186 and the blue as PMS 287. [https://nordicflagsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Norway.pdf] Unlike the other entities in this debate, the Nordic Flag Society is a vexillological association with relevant expertise and no agendas.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 12 August 2024

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State arms

state arms

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Flag Laws

Act of 10th December 1898 relating to the Flag of the Realm of Norway

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Footnotes

¹Defined in this document as a Saint George cross shifted towards the hoist. [Editor]
²Flags of the World, Flag Dates by country
³Jan Oskar Engene, E-mail of 30 August 1995
⁴Jan Oskar Engene, E-mail of 10 June 1998
⁵Flags of the World, Flag Dates by country

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Artistic credits:

Civil flag by Antonio Martins
State/War flag by Jan Oskar Engene
State arms unknown
Construction sheet: Edward Mooney, Jr.