Flag of Brandenburg (Prussian Province)

Brandenburg was the heartland of Prussia. Out of the March of Brandenburg, which the Hohenzollerns took over as an electorate in 1415, grew the state that later became a kingdom; in 1815 the Kurmark and the Neumark were combined into the Province of Brandenburg, its chief administration seated in Potsdam. The province enclosed Berlin, which left it as a separate urban district in 1881 and grew into a city of millions. All around it stayed rural: the sandy soil had earned the March its mocking nickname of sandbox, and to that came pine forests, the lakes of the Havelland and the Spreewald. The province was dissolved in 1946; the areas east of the Oder and Neisse have belonged to Poland ever since.

Meaning

The flag shows two horizontal bands of equal width: red above, white below. The colours come from the arms of the March of Brandenburg, which since the Middle Ages have borne the red eagle on a silver — that is, white — shield. Red and white thus stood for Brandenburg long before Prussia adopted black and white. The flag itself carries no device, only the two bands. Depictions do exist that place the red eagle on the stripes; that was not the official version of the provincial flag — such devices belong to the coat of arms, from which only the colours were taken here.