The flags of countries on all continents always have more or less the same characteristics: a handful of colours, geometric figures or stylized representations and a rectangular shape. This rule, however, is not always valid, as in the case of the particular flag of Nepal or the Swiss flag with its square shape.
Among the many flags in the world, that of Switzerland is one of the few to have a perfectly square shape. The origin of this flag with a red background and a white cross in the centre, dates back to the battle of Laupen (a municipality in central-western Switzerland), which took place in 1339, which saw the Swiss armies of the Canton of Bern pitted against the Habsburg militias.
As a distinctive feature to recognize themselves during combat, the soldiers of Bern adopted an insignia with a white cross, whose square cut was not at all unusual among medieval war coats of arms. The Swiss infantry inflicted a heavy defeat on the cavalry of the House of Habsburg and the banner spread more or less officially among the ranks of the army.
Its square shape, therefore, derives from the common format of the war coats of arms of the time.
Then, between the 18th and 19th centuries, at the time of the Helvetic Republic, Napoleon prohibited the use of the white cross on a red background, imposing the green, red and yellow tricolor as a replacement. But with the dissolution of the Republic in 1803, the tricolor soon fell into disuse and Swiss troops returned to displaying their flag as a distinctive sign.
In 1848 the white cross on a red background officially became the Swiss national flag, but it was not until the 2000s that its characteristics were effectively formalized.
