Tricolour (flag)

A tricolour is a type of flag or banner design with a triband design which originated in the 16th century as a symbol of republicanism, liberty or indeed revolution. The flags of France, Italy, Romania, Mexico, and Ireland were all first adopted with the formation of an independent republic in the period of the French Revolution to the Revolutions of 1848, with the exception of the Irish tricolour, which dates from 1848 but was not popularised until the Easter Rising in 1916 and adopted in 1919.

The first association of the tricolour with republicanism is the orange-white-blue design of the Prince's Flag (Prinsenvlag, predecessor of the flags of the Netherlands and Luxembourg), used from 1579 by William I of Orange-Nassau in the Eighty Years' War, establishing the independence of the Dutch Republic from the Spanish Empire.

One of the most famous tricolour, known as Le Tricolore, is the blue-white-red (whence also called Le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge) flag of France adopted in the French Revolution. With the formation of French client republics after 1795, the revolutionary tricolour was adopted more widely, by the Republic of Alba 1796 (red-blue-yellow), the Cisalpine Republic 1797 (Transpadane Republic, green-white-red), the Cisrhenian Republic 1797 (green-white-red), the Anconine Republic 1797 (blue-yellow-red), the Roman Republic 1798 (black-white-red), the Helvetic Republic 1798 (green-yellow-red; canton of Neuchatel 1848), the Parthenopean Republic 1799 (blue-yellow-red), the Principality of Lucca and Piombino 1805 (blue-white-red).