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The flag of Switzerland consists of a red square with a bold, equilateral white cross in the center. It is one of only two square sovereign-state flags, the other being the flag of the Vatican City. (The civil and state ensign, used by Swiss ships and boats, has more traditional proportions of 2:3.)

Only the dimensions of the cross are formally established since 1889: "The coat of arms of the federation is, within a red field, an upright white cross, whose [four] arms of equal length are a sixth longer than their width."[1].

The size of the cross in relation to the field is not formally established except on the naval ensign. A relation of 2:3 or 7:10 to the span of the flag is usual. The hue of red is also not formally defined; a light red is most commonly used.

The Swiss flag is based on the flag of the Canton of Schwyz.

The ultimate origin of the white cross is attributed by three competing legends: To the Theban Legion, to the Reichssturmfahne attested from the 12th century, and to the Arma Christi that were especially venerated in the three forest cantons, and which they were allegedly allowed to display on the formerly uniformly red battle flag from 1289 by king Rudolph I of Habsburg at the occasion of a campaign to Besançon.

The oldest surviving specimen of a flag of Schwyz dates to the Burgundy wars (1474–77). The illustrated chronicles show an asymmetrical white cross, drawn in greater detail, including the body of Christ, and the equilateral cross became predominant only in the later 17th century.

Use of a white cross as a mark of identification of the combined troops of the Old Swiss Confederacy is first attested in the Battle of Laupen (1339), where it was sewn on combatants' clothing as two stripes of textile, contrasting with the red St. George's cross of Habsburg Austria, and with the St. Andrew's cross used by Burgundy and Maximilian I.

Civilian use of the white cross as a symbol of the confederacy is attested from the 16th century. From the 17th century, the white cross was carried on the banners of all cantonal troops, on the background of the cantonal colours.

General Niklaus Franz von Bachmann used the white cross in a red field in 1800 and 1815, and following this use, the symbol was adopted as national symbol in the federal contract of 1815 (see also Switzerland in the Napoleonic era).

General Guillaume-Henri Dufour proposed use of the flag for the federal forces in 1840, and in 1889 the Federal Council defined the 1/6th proportion of the cross's members, while the ratio of the cross to the square field, or the shield in the case of the coat of arms, remained unspecified.

The Red Cross symbol used by the International Committee of the Red Cross is based on the Swiss flag. The Red Cross on white background was the original protection symbol declared at the 1864 Geneva Convention. It is, in terms of its color, a reversal of the Swiss national flag, a meaning which was adopted to honor Swiss native and Red Cross founder Henry Dunant.