Triband (flag)

The flag of Austria - a simple horizontal triband

The flag of France - a simple vertical triband, and also a tricolour

The flag of Canada - a vertical triband with uneven bands and a defacement

The triband is one of the commonest designs of flag, and is the design of some 30% of all current national flags.

As the name suggests, the main feature of the design of a triband is three parallel bands of colour. Many non-vexillologists use the term tricolour to describe these flags, but technically a tricolour is simply a type of triband. Tricolours by definition have three colours, whereas this is not the case with all tribands, which often feature two bands of the same colour separated by a band of a different colour.

In its simplest form, the triband consists of three equally sized horizontal or vertical stripes and nothing else. Examples of horizontal tribands include the national flags of Austria and Germany, and examples of vertical tribands include the natonal flags of Nigeria and France. In each of these pairs, the second named flag is also a tricolour.

More complex tribands include flags defaced by an emblem (such as the national flag of Croatia) or flags with bands of unequal size (such as the national flag of Colombia). The most famous complex triband is arguably the national flag of Canada, which is defaced by the maple leaf and has bands of uneven size. The ratio of the bands on this latter flag (1:2:1) has led to the term Canadian pale to refer to any central vertical band on a triband which is twice the size of the bands on either side.