The flag of Albania (Albanian: Flamuri i Shqipërisë) depicts a silhouetted black double-headed eagle in the center of a red background.

The red stands for bravery, strength, valour and bloodshed, while the Eagle – traditionally the symbol of Albanians[4] – represents the sovereign state of Albania.

During John Hunyadi's campaign in Niš in 1443, Skanderbeg and a few hundred Albanians defected from the Turkish ranks; for twenty-five years he scored remarkable victories against the Ottomans.

He adopted the similar Eastern Roman imperial flag, with the double-headed eagle and the red background, and his victories brought him the papal title Athleta Christi.

[4] The Kastrioti's coat of arms, depicting a black double-headed eagle on a red field, became famous when he led a revolt against the Ottoman Empire resulting in the independence of Albania from 1443 to 1479.

This was the flag of the League of Lezhë, which was the first unified Albanian state in the Middle Ages and the oldest representative political body in the country with extant records.

The phrase Tash o vllazën do t’ju takojë të shihni atë që për 450 vjet se ka pa kush (Now brothers you have earned the right to see that which has been unseen for 450 years) has been attributed to Ded Gjo Luli by later memoirs of those who were present when he raised the flag.

In case of a national mourning, announced by a decision of the Council of Ministers, the national flag is raised at half-mast.According to researcher and art conservator Frederik Stamati and his colleague Ariola Prifti, an ethnographic fund specialist at the Center for Albanological Studies, there is no trace evidence of the original flag that was raised in Vlorë on 28 November 1912, the day Albania declared its independence.

[20] Eqrem bey Vlora writes in his memoirs,[21] published posthumously as "Lebenserinnerungen", Munich (1968–1973), that sometime in 1909 while visiting Paris, he had the good fortune to meet Don Aladro, a wealthy spanish-basque diplomat and a strong supporter of the Albanian cause who at one point had announced his candidacy for the Albanian throne by claiming descent from the House of Kastrioti through his paternal grandmother, a noblewoman that lived during the era of Charles III.

During their meeting, Vlora asserts the following episode occurred:[22] "After dinner, a servant brought a red velvet box on a silver tray and placed it in front of Don Aladro.

"[23] Historian Valentina Duka provides further insights into this argument in her book "History of Albania, 1912–2000", where she publishes authentic documents from the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

From these documents, we learn of the efforts made by the government of Prime Minister Kostaq Kotta, to collect historical objects of this era and to house them at the National History Museum.

In 1930, the minister of foreign affairs Rauf Fico, began a correspondence with Eqrem bey Vlora, who at the time was serving as the ambassador of Albania in Athens.

He goes on to explain that the flag along with other personal possessions, were confiscated and burned during 1915, by the government of the so called Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus in the home of a family friend in Delvinë.

[25] Kristo Floqi writes in the weekly newspaper Arbënia in 1936,[26] that "the national flag that was raised for the first time had been "crafted" with her own hands by Marigo Posio from a cloth purchased by a local drapery merchant named Diamanti and based on the model drawn by Dom Mark Vasa and Petro Fotografi".

[27] This second hypothesis is also supported by Posio's assistant, Thina Ferra who claims the following: Marigo painted the eagle with black holes herself and that I warmed this flag near the brazier to dry it quickly.

We painted a lot of other flags to distribute to the people, including a small Albanian eagle that we sealed on the white shell caps of all the labs who participated in the manifestations.Vinçenc Prennushi (O.F.M.)

It shows a striking resemblance to another illustration found on the cover page of the 16th issue of the 2nd annual edition of Perlindja e Shqipëniës newspaper, the official publication of the newly formed Albanian State, dated 7 March 1914.

In it, a piece of cloth roughly 20 by 30 cm in length, in light red color with a white star polygon at the lower right corner is presented as the "national flag" with Essad Pasha identifying himself as interim president and general supreme commander.

A similar model can be corroborated in Artan Lame's book "Princi i Shqiptarëve" that shows a shielded purple-colored peacock and the eagle wingspan in a more compact form with the historically accurate five-pointed white star hovering at the top.

A 2012 auction in Genoa, Italy unveiled for the first time the flag of the principality, physically intact, displayed inside a square laminated wooden frame with the descriptive title shown at the bottom in golden letters embossed onto a black coated strip.

The flag which was found in Durrës on 20 December 1915, had been taken from there by italian diplomat Baron Carlo Aliotti aboard the Austrian destroyer SMS Lika.

[39] Article III of the Fundamental Statute of the Albanian Kingdom describes the flag as red with a black two-headed eagle in the center.

[41] The Yearbook of the Kingdom of Albania in its 1940–XVIII edition, describes in Title I, Article II of the Constitutional Charter the following: The Albanian flag is red, charged at the center with the black double-headed eagle and the sign of the lictor fasces.