The two outer stripes on Austria’s national flag are red. The flag is a simple horizontal triband arranged red, white, and red, with three equal bands in the civil version.
This pattern traces back to the arms associated with the Babenberg dynasty and was first documented in 1230. Unlike the black-and-yellow colors associated with the Habsburg monarchy, red-white-red became strongly identified with Austria itself.
A famous story claims that Duke Leopold V created the design after the Siege of Acre, when blood allegedly covered his white surcoat except beneath his belt. That tale was recorded centuries later and is treated as legend rather than securely established history.
Austria also has a state flag showing the national coat of arms over the same red-white-red field. The vertical version preserves the same color order from the hoist side: red, white, red. Austria’s design is therefore easy to confuse with other red-white-red flags, but its historical association is distinctive.