Last modified: 2005-05-28 by dov gutterman
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Lithuania is divided in two territorial administrative levels:
the counties and the municipalities. The counties have a governor
which represent the state on a regional level. Counties are
divided in municipalities. The municipalities are units of
local-governement. These are formed with residential areas
(towns, small towns and villages). There are two sort of
municipalities: cities and districts. According to the Law on the
Lithuanian state flag (26/06/1991), article 5 says that "the
order of approval and use of historical or new sample flags of
towns [read: cities] and districts shall be established by
laws." The article 29 of the Law on local self-government
(7/7/1994)gives some clues: "The coat of arms of the
administrative centre of a municipality shall be considered the
coat of arms of the respective local authority. (...) The local
authority coat of arms shall be used on the flag of the
municipality, seals of local self-government institutions, local
authority administration, its divisions and officers, insignia of
mayors, document forms and signs. (amended 14 march 1996).So we
have here an example, the coat of arms and the flag of the town
of Prienai is at the same time the coat of arms and the flag of
the Prienai Region Municipality.
Some things are unclear in this situation. It exists some
municipalities, districts, which capital is another municipalty,
a city. That is the case of Vilnius district which capital is
Vilnius city, and also the cases of Alytus, Kaunas, Mariampole,
Panevez^ys, Siauliai.Only the case of Klaipeda is clear, because
the capital of the district of Klaipeda is Gargz^daiand not the
municipality of Klaipeda which is located in the district.
I have seen at the CEBED in Belgium two photo of flags for
Vilnius. Both were the same, except that one showed the greater
coat of arms of the city, the other the shield only. I might
think the one with the shield only is for the district and the
other one for the city. The flag of Memel/ Klaipeda we have
discussed some times ago (yellow over red
with the coat of arms on the yellow stripe) is certainly the flag
of the city of Klaipeda now.
Pascal Vagnat, 22 October 1998
Currently there are three sort of municipalities: cities,
districts and small local authorities (called
"savivaldybe" - "a self-ruling one"), because
some districts were splited to smaller municipalities. It's true
that "The coat of arms of the administrative centre of a
municipality shall be considered the coat of arms of the
respective local authority." but only if the municipality
doesn't have its own coat of arms. Currently municipalities of
Trakai and Panevezys districts have got official CoA,
different from CoA of their administrative centres. The
Marijampole district exists no more, it is divided between
Marijampole city and Kalvarija and Kazlu Ruda small local
authorities.
Virginijus Misiunas, 15 May 2001
According to the Law on the Territorial Administrative Units of the Republic of Lithuania and their Boundaries, 19th July 1994, Nr.I-558, Vilnius; Chapter 2 - Administrative Division of the Territory of the Republic of Lithuania; Article 5 - The Counties of the Republic of Lithuania and their Te