🚀 go-pugleaf

On the subject of the Albanian flag, Mauro Talocci (Guide to the Flags
of the World) says that when Albania achieved its independence from
Turkey in 1912 a centuries-old red flag with a two-headed eagle. He
says the flag was used by Skanderbeg, the Albanian national hero of the
15th century "in honor of an ancient tradition that the first Albanians
were descendants of an eagle." (None of this is meant to say that the
Byzantine imperial eagle might not have influenced Skanderbeg.) The red
star was added on March 15, 1946, to mark the beginning of the
Communist regime.

What I don't know is whether Albania has removed the star at this
time.

Albania, btw, appears to be the only European state to preserve the
two-headed eagle. Both Germany and Austria, along with Liechtenstein,
use black, one-headed eagles.

The German eagle appears on the state arms, the war flag and the war
ensign, the state flag and ensign, and the presidential flag (but not
the national flag).

The Austrian eagle appears on the state flag and ensign and the war
flag, as well the state arms. The post-Imperial eagle is not only
one-headed, but grasps a hammer and sickle in its talons, wears a civic
crown, and has a broken chain dangling from its legs.

The Liechtenstein eagles appear on the shield of the prince's coat of
arms. The shield is quartered to descent of the ruling family (Silesia,
the Kuenrings, the duchy of Troppau, and the county of Rietberg)
together with the hunting horn of Jaegerndorff. Black eagles appear in
the Silesian and Rietberg quarters.

On the provincial level, I note that there is a one-headed, black eagle
on the cantonal flag of Geneva and two two-headed, black eagles on the
provincial flag of Antwerp. Indeed, Antwerp (and Wallonia) are only
Belgian provinces that do use the rampant lion of Belgium's royal and
state arms. Two Austrian Laender also show eagles, but not black ones,
on their flags: Tyrol and Burgenland.

(Poland uses a quite different eagle. And many Arab states employ
Saladin's eagle, which is a subject I know next to nothing about and
would like to know more.)

-- 
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
	"Well, I'm a little muddled." -- Glinda