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Gotland, municipality of (Sweden)

Gotlands kommun

Last modified: 2005-06-03 by phil nelson
Keywords: gotland | ram | lamb | visby | wisby | hansa | hanseatic league |
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[Gotland] by Jan Oskar Engene
The flag is a banner of the arms;
arms adopted in 1987.

 

 

See also:

Municipality (commune) of Gotland

The municipality of Gotland was formed in 1971 by the unification of all the former municipalities in the island. The flag of the commune, officially registered in 1987, has a red field with a white standing ram, horns and hooves yellow, carrying a cross staff with a red flag bordered in yellow and with five tails also in yellow. The image here shows the flag as a banner of the arms as officially registered.

However, the municipality actually uses a heraldically incorrect flag that has a white border around the red field. Moreover, this version employs the 1936 version of the drawing of the ram and banner.
Jan Oskar Engene, 1998-Jun-02 (revised)

note: The arms and flag of the municipality are exactly the same as the arms and flag of the province, except for the field which is red like in the old arms of Visby.

History and Geography

Gotland is an island in the Baltic Sea. The island is historically one of Sweden's 24 provinces. In the case of Gotland the territory of the old province, the modern county and the modern commune coincides.

Currently, there are two official flags for the island of Gotland - one for the province and county of Gotland and one for the commune of Gotland.
Jan Oskar Engene, 1998-Jun-02 (revised)

Sources for the texts by Jan Oskar Engene on this page:
· Per Andersson: Nordiska korsflaggor, Mjölby, 1992 [and92]
· Clara Nevéus: Ny svensk vapenbok, Stockholm, 1992 [nev92]
· Knut Pipping and Leif Tengström: "Huset Vasa, Jagellonerna och Ivan IV Vasilievitj: Några hypoteser om de svenska landskapsvapnens uppkomst", Heraldisk tidsskrift, Vol. 5, No. 49-50, 1984, pp. 107-138

Former municipalities on Gotland

Visby

[Visby] by Elias Granqvist
The flag is a banner of the arms;
arms formally granted on 14 May 1943, based on older tradition.

The seal of the city of Visby originally had an Agnus Dei combined with a tre