Last modified: 2010-02-19 by marcus schmöger
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Austria consists of 2359 municipalities (including cities, towns
and market-towns), 2346 of which are members of the Österreichischer
Gemeindebund (Austrian Association of Municipalities).
A list
of all Austrian municipalities can be found at the website of
"Statistik Austria".
The usual form of the municipal flag is a hanging flag, striped in the main (two or three) colours of the coat-of-arms,
frequently with the coat-of-arms slightly upset to the top. This is very similar to the practice followed in Southern
Germany.
As in Germany, most people think that their municipal flags are of ancient origin, for instance:
"All municipal flags in Austria are very old, so we do not need to create any
new flags."
Thomas Schulreich, cited in Quo vadimus by Peter Orenski [ore01a]/[ore03]
Although municipal coats-of-arms are in many cases quite old in
Austria, many of the coats-of-arms of smaller municipalities are of more recent
origin. Municipal flags as a whole are probably not so old, as only
recently (the last 50 or so years) most municipalities have started using their own
flags.
Typical for the municipal flag usage in whole Austria is probably the
following text about municipal flags in Tirol, from the Landesarchiv Tirol (Tyrol State
Archives) (translation into English by Marcus Schmöger):
"The use of a municipal flag has taken roots in Tyrol only late. Until
the 60ies of the 20th century only in very rare cases the flag colours
of the municipalities with own coats-of-arms had been officially laid
down. In the 70ies the unicoloured golden-yellow flag with the municipal
coat-of-arms prevailed as municipal flag. Then the Tyrolian state
archives switched to laying down the colours of the municipal flags in
agreement with the then 203 municipalities with own coats-of-arms, and
to fix them legally by proclamation of the Tyrolian state government.
The flag colours were then and afterwards, according to old heraldic
tradition, derived from the colours of the municipal coat-of-arms.
Tyrolian municipal flags have two stripes, only Lienz, Wörgl and Wattens
have a flag with three stripes.
All 279 Tyrolian municipalities have a municipal coat-of-arms in the
meantime. Twelve of them, those of the old towns and market-towns, have
developed historically, four were granted by the emperor between 1898
and 1911 in the course of promotions to town or market-town, one was
granted in 1923 by the Austrian federal government. All other Tyrolian
municipal coats-of-arms are based on a decision of the Tyrolian state
government, as in the Republic of Austria the right to grant arms to
municipalities, was devolved from the federal government to the state
governments in 1925."
Marcus Schmöger, 17 August 2003
Lacking own municipal flags, the national flag is frequently used as background for the municipal coat-of-arms - except for
Vienna, definitely having an own city flag. Also the state capitals have their
own colours, but I think only a minor fraction of the municipalities.
Peter Diem, 18 August / 3 September 2003 (translated by Marcus Schmöger)
Having now sent 100% of the Upper Austrian municipal flags and
having researched some municipal flags in Tirol and Salzburg
in October 2003, I guess it is time for some preliminary overview of the Austrian municipal flags.
As in neighbouring Bavaria, municipal flags (in contrast to municipal
coats-of-arms or seals) have not played any significant role until the 1950ies/1960ies. Probably, only larger cities derived municipal colours
from their coat-of-arms, and used flags striped in these colours.
As more and more municipalities adopted coats-of-arms, also municipal flags were brought into use, with some delay, though. The main symbol
remains the coat-of-arms, the flag is only a secondary symbol. Interestingly, the different Austrian
Länder handled this issue very differently.
Burgenland: Although I have some municipal colours
from [dea96] and [prp97], I don't have
much information on the actual practice there, especially not many photos of municipal flags from Burgenland.
Kärnten: Flag colours are granted by the state archives. Bicolours prevail over tricolours, in particular in recent times. Coats-of-arms and flags are described and shown in [dew06].
Niederösterreich: I don't have a clear picture there, but it seems that the practice is similar to Oberösterreich. I only found some dispersed information on the web, that I will send you in a due time.
Oberösterreich: Upper Austria seems to be the Land, where the municipal flags are pretty well organized: the colours are officially adopted, and confirmed by the state archives. However, there are some towns with historical coats-of-arms having never officially adopted flag colours; 70% of them use the colours red-white or white-red, so I guess most of these also belong to the category "colours of the Land with own municipal coat-of-arms".
Salzburg: As there is no legal provision for municipal flags, many of the municipalities just use the colours of the Land Salzburg (red-white) with the municipal coat-of-arms (information from the Salzburg state archives). See Neukirchen am Grossvenediger and my recent observations in Leogang. Others seem to use two or three colours from their coat-of-arms, but without any official adoption or involvement of the state archives.
Steiermark: As I had learned from the Styrian State Archives, Styrian municipalities do not have their own municipal colours (like for instance those in Upper Austria, Lower Austria or Tyrol), but usually use the Styrian colours with their municipal arms for a flag. However, this has to be ascertained in detail with each and every Styrian municipality.
Tirol: There were three phases in the history of the municipal flags there:
1. Up to about 1972, only some municipalities used flags in colours derived from the coat-of-arms.
2. Since 1972 the plain yellow flag with the coat-of-arms prevailed.
3. Since 1981 all municipalities got their own colours derived from the coat-of-arms.
However, as far as I can tell from my own observations last weekend (3-5 October
2003), there is quite some mess in Tirol: Some municipalities (e.g. Ellmau and
St. Johann in Tirol) actually use their official colours; others use
their "old" yellow flags (e.g. Fieberbrunn and Going am Wilden
Kaiser); and I have at least one case, where the municipality actually uses the colours
red-white (reversed Land Tirol colours) with the coat-of-arms (Ladis).
Vorarlberg: At least the more recent version of the Gemeindegesetz of 1985 (I do not
have the earlier versions) also mentions the flag, namely in § 12: "Jede Gemeinde hat das Recht, eine Fahne (Flagge) zu führen und deren
Aussehen durch Verordnung festzusetzen." (Each municipality has the right to use a flag and to establish its design by
decree.)
As I learned from the Austrian heraldist Karl Palfrader, the state archives are obviously not involved in the flag adoption, so there is no
material there. This means contacting each and every municipality directly.
Marcus Schmöger, 6 October 2003 / 7 April 2005 / 7 August 2005
Is the fact that the Austrian municipal flags are all gonfalons the result of tradition or
law?
Andre Burgers, 12 January 2004
I would not call them "gonfalons". To me a "gonfalon" is a flag that is carried (like a procession banner) and not hoisted. Most of the
Austrian municipal flags indeed are different variants of vertical flags, including
hanging flags and Banner, but also flags that are hoisted along
their longer side (Knatterflaggen).
To answer your question: Basically it is the tradition, although there is no real tradition in using
municipal flags in Austria and Germany. In the 19th century one could frequently see long hanging flags in the
Landesfarben suspended from windows or other places on houses on festive days. This has been most common practive in inland parts of Germany and
Austria ever since, so that the "normal" horizontal, hoisted flag is not
assumed to be the "usual" form.
From this also the municipal flags have derived their most common form. See for instance the municipal flags in the
Bavarian county Erding.
In most cases, there are only very vague legal prescriptions regarding the municipal flags. As far as I know no German nor Austrian
Land prescribes the actual form of the flags. The only thing that is usually
prescribed for each individual municipality, are the colours of the stripes. Anything beyond that (form of the flag, ratio height:width,
shade of the colours, with/without arms, size and position of the arms ...) is usually left to the municipality, and of course the flagmaker.
Marcus Schmöger, 15 January 2004
[bmt96] [brm75] [brm75a] [csm86] [ebn03] [gaf65] [hye90] [kfb95] [lio65] [lkm35] [prp97] [wkl76] [zpf85]
See also:
External Links to collections of Austrian municipal coats-of-arms: