Flag of Bavaria

There are officially two flags of Bavaria: the striped type, and the lonzenge type, both blue and white. Both flags are historically associated with the Wittelsbach family, that ruled Bavaria.

Bavaria

Landesflagge
Use	Civil and state flag, civil and state ensign
Proportion	3:5
Adopted	Historical
Design	A bicolor of white over blue.
Landesflagge
Use	Civil and state flag, civil and state ensign
Proportion	3:5
Adopted	1953
Design	An array of 21 or more lozenges of blue and white, with or without arms.

Both horizontal and vertical flags with stripes or blue and white lozenges without arms can be considered official for use as state and civil flag and as civil ensign (on lakes and rivers). The variants defaced with the arms are not only unofficial, but not considered legal. However, the de facto used civil flag is in most cases a lozenge-style flag with the arms.

The exact shade of blue has never been set in stone, but most flags used by the public are approximately RGB 0-204-255; official use something closer to RGB 0-128-255. The lonzenges are neither set in number, except there must be at least 21, and the top left (incomplete) lozenge must be white. Some people believe the lozenges to be representative of the lakes and rivers of Bavaria; or their colour to be that of the lakes or the sky or both (as in the Bavarian anthem, which says 'die Farben deines Himmels, Weiß und Blau' - 'the colours of your/His sky, white and blue'); but this has never been proven. The other argument is that they are historical.