Germany’s national flag has three horizontal bands: black, red, and gold. The bands are equal in width, making the design a horizontal tricolour.
The modern flag’s colours became associated with German national unity and liberal politics during the 19th century. They were prominently used during the 1848 revolutions and later became the flag of the Weimar Republic in 1919. West Germany readopted the design in 1949, and it remained the flag of reunified Germany after 1990.
A common mistake is to confuse it with the black-white-red flag of the German Empire, used from 1871 to 1918 and revived by the Nazis in 1933. Another small point of confusion is the bottom colour: officially it is gold, although it can look yellow. Germany’s standard flag has a 3:5 height-to-length ratio.