^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Schaffhausen canton (Switzerland)

by António Martins

Description of the flag
Symbolism of the flag
History of the flag
Flaggen, Knatterfahnen, and livery colours

See also:

Description of the flag

Or, a ram sautant sable, crowned armed unguled and in his virility gold, langued gules.

On a yellow field, a leaping black ram with golden horns, hooves, penis, and crown, and a red tongue. This flag has a minor heraldic error in that it combines actual gold with yellow, but there was a conscious reason for this (see below).

Symbolism of the flag

The ram is a prehistoric religious and martial symbol of virility and power. Heraldry tends to emphasize virility by always depicting male animals, and Swiss heraldry often specifies the colour of genitals. Gold genitals may seem odd, but that was a papal decision that even the Protestant Reformation did not change. The ram is sometimes understood to be a play on the name of the city ("scaf" = sheep), but this is incorrect, and the correct etymology is "sca^fa"-"hausen", or "house of ships". (Schaffhausen is the southernmost navigable point on the Rhine.) The colours black and yellow almost certainly derive from the old imperial standard (black eagle on a yellow field).

History of the flag

Schaffhausen's development was closely tied to a Benedictine convent founded in 1052. The city state became sovereign within the Holy Roman Empire in 1218, and that is also the earliest documented evidence of the flag. Schaffhausen fell under Austrian dominance in 1330 a