[1] During the invasion of the Arabs, despite stronger resistance than even the Persian, Armenia came under control Umayyad Caliphate, and on its territory the Armenian Emirate was created, stretching from modern Baku and Derbent in the east to the sources of the Euphrates in the west and from the Terek River in the north to Lake Urmia in the south.

In 885, Armenia gained independence and the flag, which is a dark red canvas with the image of a white leopard and a Christian cross on it.

[4] Another variation of the flag of Ayas would appear on the 1325 portolan chart of Angelino de Dalorto, featuring a red background with a white animal in the center and black stripes.

On a Jorge Aguiar's portolan chart, Alexandretta would be featured again with a different scheme, red and yellow diagonal stripes.

After Armenia was split between the Persian and the Ottoman Empire, the idea of an Armenian flag ceased to exist for some time.

Its colours were red, green, and either blue or yellow, representing the rainbow that Noah saw after landing on Mount Ararat.

[1] During the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828, the Armenian volunteer militias had three battle flags, boasting the Double-headed eagle, Noah's Ark, and a depiction of Jesus Christ.

[15] According to Simon Vratsian, Stepan Malkhasyants presented a now-lost report on the first day of the assembly, in which he discussed the flag of the republic and proposed a horizontal tricolor of red, blue, and orange.

Later that day, a vote was held, in which it was decided that the flag was to be a horizontal tricolor of red, blue, and orange, with a height to width ratio of 2:3.

On 31 July 1919, Armenian artist Martiros Saryan sent a letter to Kajaznuni after learning that the flag had not been finalized, in which he proposed three alternate designs, one tricolor and two rainbows.

[15] The final attached imaged is a tricolor of red, yellow, and blue from top to bottom, possibly arranged to match their order in a rainbow.

[16] In April 1919, a proposal for the flag of Armenia was published in the Armenian diaspora journal Veradzenount [fr], consisting of a horizontal bicolor with the top two-thirds blue, and the bottom third red, with a white cross in the center.

[14] On 2 February 1922, the Constitution of the Armenian SSR was signed into law, describing the republic's flag in Article 89 as a red banner, with the gold letters "Հ.Խ.Ս.Հ.

Additionally, an 1923 book published by the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs depicts the lettering of the flag in Cyrillic script, instead of in the Armenian alphabet used in the constitution's description.

The obverse of the new flag was composed of a red field, with a horizontal blue stripe running through the center, and a golden hammer and sickle below a star in the canton.

[17] In late May 1988, amid rising nationalist tensions due to glasnost and perestroika, the leader of the Communist Party of Armenia, Suren Harutyunyan [hy], allowed the previously banned flag of the First Republic of Armenia to fly in Yerevan for the first time in over sixty years.

[18] A year later, he urged that the flag be officially recognized, after a mass demonstration by the Karabakh movement where the tricolour was flown.

[26] The white pattern symbolized the separation of Artsakh from Armenia proper and its aspiration for eventual union with the Republic's claimed Fatherland.

This symbolized the Armenian heritage, culture and population of the area and represents Artsakh as being a separated region of Armenia by the triangular shape and the zigzag cutting through the flag.