Country profile: Switzerland

The white cross on a red field has its roots on medieval battlefields: as early as the Battle of Laupen in 1339, Confederate soldiers sewed a white cross onto their chainmail to tell themselves apart from opposing forces. The cross gradually became a shared rallying symbol among the different cantons.

The current design, a solid white cross on a red square, was adopted in 1840-1841 as the common flag of the federal troops, at the initiative of General Guillaume Henri Dufour. After the federal state was founded in 1848, it became established as the flag of the Confederation. A decree of the Federal Assembly of 12 December 1889 set out its exact proportions: the arms of the cross, all of equal length, must be one-sixth longer than they are wide.

Switzerland is today, along with Vatican City, one of only two countries in the world with a square rather than rectangular national flag.

The white cross draws on an old Christian tradition, used as a rallying sign by the Confederates from the fourteenth century onward. The red field is inherited from the banner colours of the Holy Roman Empire, which several Swiss cantons were subject to in the Middle Ages before the Confederation gradually gained independence.

More broadly, the white cross on red has come to symbolise neutrality, the unity of the cantons and Switzerland's independence.

The flag of the International Committee of the Red Cross, founded in Geneva in 1863 by the Swiss humanitarian Henry Dunant, reproduces the exact colours of the Swiss flag in reverse, a red cross on white, in tribute to the organisation's country of origin.

Switzerland and Vatican City are the only two states in the world to use a square rather than a rectangular flag; for international use, such as aboard ships, a rectangular version of the Swiss flag is nonetheless tolerated.

The cross's exact proportions, fixed in 1889, with arms one-sixth longer than they are wide, officially distinguish the Swiss flag from a simple Greek cross with perfectly equal arms.