State Emblem of the Socialist Republic of Croatia

Coat of arms of Croatia
Details
Armiger	Republic of Croatia
Adopted	21 December 1990
Crest	A crown of five arms, as follows: Azure a mullet of six points Or above a crescent argent; Azure two bars gules; Azure three leopard heads caboshed Or; Azure a goat statant Or unguled and armed gules; Azure on a fess gules fimbriated argent a marten Sable courant proper in chief a mullet of six points Or
Escutcheon	Chequy gules and argent

The coat of arms of the Republic of Croatia (Croatian: Grb Republike Hrvatske) consists of one main shield and five smaller shields which form a crown over the main shield. The main coat of arms is a checkerboard (chequy) that consists of 13 red and 12 silver (white) fields. It's also informally known in Croatian as šahovnica ("chessboard", from šah, "chess"). The five smaller shields represent five different historical regions within Croatia.

The checkerboard coat of arms (šahovnica) is first attested as an official symbol of the kingdom of Croatia on an Innsbruck tower depicting the emblem of Maximilian I, Archduke of Austria in 1495. It appeared on a seal from the Cetingrad Charter that confirmed the 1527 election of Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria as king of Croatia in Cetin.

The origin of the design has often been purported as being medieval. Historic tradition states it to be the arms of Stephen Držislav in the 10th century. A Split stone baptistry from the time of Peter Krešimir IV (r. 1058–1074/5) has engraved falcons that carry something that resembles a chequy on their wings, and the bell tower of the medieval Church of St. Lucy, Jurandvor has a checkerboard pattern carved onto it.

The size of the checkerboard ranges from 3×3 to 8×8, but most commonly 5×5, like in the current design. It was traditionally conjectured that the colours originally represented two ancient Croat states, Red Croatia and White Croatia, but there is no historical evidence to support this.

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