Albania’s national flag is red with a black double-headed eagle in the middle. Its legal hoist-to-fly ratio is 5:7. The current flag dates from 1992; the law of 22 July 2002 defines the standardized design documented here. Official national symbols ↗ · Adoption reference ↗
Specification
Article 14(2) of the Constitution identifies the red flag and central black double-headed eagle. Article 3 of Law No. 8926 describes the field as blood red and the eagle with wings spread sideways: nine feathers on each wing and seven in the tail. It sets the dimensions at 1 to 1.4 units, equivalent to hoist:fly 5:7, and makes Annex 1 part of the legal specification. Constitution, Article 14 ↗ · Law and annex, pages 1, 3–4 ↗
Published color guidance
| Element | Legal description / annex | Local SVG screen fill |
|---|---|---|
| Field | Blood red; Annex 1 lists B/K/V/Z 0/100/100/0, corresponding to CMYK 0/100/100/0 | #FF0000 |
| Eagle | Black; no separate numeric black schedule appears in the inspected flag annex | #000000 |
The annex supplies a red process-color schedule, not an RGB conversion or a textile tolerance. The SVG’s red is a screen rendition. Flags of the World also reports Pantone 186 C and CMYK 0/90/80/5 from the naval Album des Pavillons; that reference differs from the annex and is not substituted for the national law. No official HEX, RGB, RAL or fabric matching standard is asserted here. Comparative color reference ↗
Construction notes
Use a rectangular frame seven units long and five units high, with the eagle in the middle. Annex 1 supplies the eagle’s silhouette rather than a dimensioned coordinate grid. Its two outward-facing heads, spread wings, feet and pointed central tail feather must remain recognizable when the artwork is scaled.
The inspected SVG has a 700 × 500 frame, one full-field red rectangle and two black paths. The second path repeats the first through the transform matrix(-1, 0, 0, 1, 700, 0), reflecting it about x=350. This is the vector’s construction method, not a separately worded legal symmetry rule. The rendered eagle, feather counts and principal placement were compared with the annex illustration. Rounded Bézier coordinates remain a digital rendition; the scanned annex does not establish exact path tolerances or numerical emblem margins. Preserve the paths and scale the whole specimen uniformly. Asset and geometry audit →
Symbols and usage
The eagle is the national identifying device. The Constitution and flag law specify its appearance without assigning separate meanings to its two heads or individual feathers; no individual designer of the current legal model is identified in those texts.
Article 4 of the 2002 law gives Albanian citizens the right to carry, raise and use the flag, requires public institutions to display it indoors and outdoors, and provides for official representation and half-mast display during declared national mourning. These are the original law’s provisions; this entry is not a consolidated protocol manual. The Constitution names 28 November as Flag Day and the national holiday. Law, Article 4 ↗
Historical record
The Albanian diplomatic service associates Flag Day with 28 November 1912. That historical national milestone does not date the precise SVG shown here. Flags of the World reports adoption of the current flag on 7 April 1992 and separately identifies a 1992–2002 rendition. The 2002 illustrated model is used for this specimen; earlier artwork is not interchangeable with it.
Law No. 8926 is dated 22 July 2002 and was proclaimed by Presidential Decree No. 3417 on 31 July 2002. Article 10 provides for entry into force 15 days after publication in the Official Gazette. Neither the law’s date nor the proclamation date is presented as the commencement date; the exact publication-based commencement has not been independently established here. Law, page 3 ↗
Source trail
Reviewed 14 September 2026. Albanian legal descriptions are paraphrased in English.
- Constitutional Court: Constitution incorporating 2020 amendments ↗ — Article 14, national identity and holiday.
- Official Publications Centre: Law No. 8926 ↗ — official register entry; its text requires JavaScript.
- Parliamentary law and illustrated annex, Commons-hosted PDF ↗ — original text, Articles 2–4 and 10; Annex 1 visually inspected on PDF pages 3–4. Document provenance ↗.
- Albanian Embassy: national symbols ↗ — current official flag identity and Flag Day.
- Flags of the World: Albania ↗ — reported 1992 adoption, earlier rendition and comparative color guidance.
- Commons specimen, contributors and public-domain declaration ↗ — artwork revision 26 July 2023; local provenance and checksum →.
