Originally a banner of the medieval Kingdom of Georgia, it was repopularised in the late 20th and early 21st centuries during the Georgian national revival.

According to Georgia's State Council of Heraldry, the engraving on its reverse side displays a "folded five-cross composition" and thus is an unmistakable historical connection of the design of the Georgian national flag with King David IV.

The white flag with the single red St. George's cross was supposedly used by King Vakhtang I in the 5th century.

[dubious – discuss][10] According to tradition, King Tamar (d. 1213) used a flag with a dark red cross and a star in a white field.

According to D. Kldiashvili (1997), the Jerusalem cross might have been adopted during the reign of King George V.[12] During Georgia's brief existence as an independent state as the Democratic Republic of Georgia from 1918 to 1921, a flag consisting of a dark red field with black and white bands in the canton was adopted.

The design resulted from a national flag-designing contest won by the painter Iakob Nikoladze.