Flag of Scania

Cross flag of Skåne.[1]
The official flag of Skåne,[2] not used as much as the semi-official cross flag.

The flag of Skåne, or the Scanian Cross Flag[1] is a provincial flag representing Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden.

There are other more official regional flags. The traditional province of Skåne has arms bearing a red griffin head in a golden field, and the official flag of the province is thus a banner of arms based on this arms.[2] The modern provincial authorities also use banners-of-arms, one being the banner-of-arms of Skåne Regional Council[3] (i.e. the county council), adopted 9 February 1999: on a field of blue, a yellow crowned griffin head issuing from the bottom edge. Skåne County, Skåne län, also has an official flag consisting of the banner of arms:[1] on a field of yellow, a red griffin head, crowned blue.

The cross flag is used by the Region when the Council is in session, alongside the Swedish national flag, the European Union flag and the Council's own banner,[4] so its status can nowadays be considered semi-official.

History

The Scanian cross flag is believed to have been created in 1902 at the private initiative of the historian Mathias Weibull, who based his design on the Nordic tradition of cross flags. It combines the red field of the flag of Denmark with the yellow cross of the flag of Sweden, reflecting the troubled history of the region.

A very disputed hypothesis claims that the flag is derived from the coat of arms of the Danish Archbishop of Lund,[5] the Archbishop for all the Nordic countries from about 1100 until the separate Norwegian archdiocese was established in 1152 and the Swedish archdiocese in 1163. However, there is no evidence that this coat of arms or the corresponding banner was ever used by him. On the contrary, all sources agree that the archiepiscopal coat of arms depicted the gridiron of St. Lawrence, the patron saint of the Lund Cathedral. This is still the coat of arms of the present diocese of Lund.

Similar flags

A flag of similar design, a yellow cross on a red field, was proposed as the flag of Finland before settling on a white field with a blue cross. It is sometimes used as an unofficial flag by the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland.

The same design, with proportions similar to those of the Swedish flag, was the official flag of the Norwegian Nazi party Nasjonal Samling from 1933 until its dissolution in 1945.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Scanian cross flag (Sweden)". Crwflags.com. Retrieved 2010-08-06.
  2. 1 2 "Scanian flag (Sweden)". Crwflags.com. Retrieved 2013-05-28.
  3. ↑ "County of Scania (Sweden)". Crwflags.com. Retrieved 2010-08-06.
  4. ↑ Nyhetsbrev 2/1999 från Region Skåne
  5. ↑ Sven-Olle R. Olsson. "Skånelands flagga". Svenska Heraldiska Föreningen. Retrieved 2009-03-14.
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