West Bothnia (Sweden)

Västerbotten

Last modified: 2005-06-03 by phil nelson
Keywords: sweden | west bothnia | vasterbotten | bothnia | reindeer |
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• About the Flag
• Geography
• Blazon

See also:

• North Bothnia (Norrbotten)
• County of North Bothnia (Norrbottens län)
• County of West Bothnia (Västerbottens län)
• Norrland
• Regional flags (Sweden)
• Clickable map of Sweden (landskap/provinces)
• Sweden

About the Flag

This is the flag of West Bothnia, a historical province in Sweden. The reindeer is a characteristic animal of the Bothnian fauna.
Elias Granqvist, 25 December 2001

West Bothnia (in Swedish: Västerbotten) was originally all Swedish land west of the Gulf of Bothnia (while the Swedish land east of this gulf was East Bothnia, or Ostrobothnia (Österbotten)). The land of the Laps (the Samis) were however considered a province of its own as soon as it was possible to positively see it as a part of the Swedish realm, and this was called Lapland (in Swedish Lappland, in Finnish Lappi). The original eastern border of the province was at the Kemi and Ounas Rivers, but in the peace treaty of Hamina (Fredrikshamn) in 1809, the border between Sweden and Russia was drawn along the Torne River. During the 20th Century, many people has come to see the northern part of the province as a province in its own right, called