Which European country’s flag features a coat of arms with a red and white checkerboard pattern? Croatia. The Croatian flag carries a coat of arms whose central shield is the red-and-white checkerboard known as the šahovnica.
The shield contains 25 fields—13 red and 12 white—and is topped by a crown of five smaller shields representing historic Croatian regions. Those include Central Croatia, Dubrovnik, Dalmatia, Istria, and Slavonia. The checkerboard is the most recognizable element of Croatian heraldry.
The symbol has medieval precedents, with a prominent dated example recorded in Innsbruck in 1495. It appeared officially in Croatian heraldic use in the 16th century and changed form during the eras of the Habsburg monarchy, Yugoslavia, and communist rule. Croatia’s present flag and coat of arms were adopted on 21 December 1990, while the flag was officially adopted as the national flag of independent Croatia in 1991. Slovenia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina use different emblems.