Last modified: 2006-09-09 by marcus schmöger
Keywords: municipality: austria | vorarlberg |
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The Austrian state Vorarlberg has 96 municipalities, 4 of them are towns/cities. The early history of the municipal coats-of-arms is similar to adjacent Austrian and German states, i.e. originally only towns and market-towns had their own arms, between WW1 and WW2 a number of municipal coats-of-arms were granted. The Gemeindegesetz of 1965 (Law on municipalities) made it obligatory to grant arms to all municipalities; this had been achieved until 31 December 1970. The book containing all the coats-of-arms is [brm75].
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.
The Österreichische Städtebuch Vorarlberg [bzp73] describes not only the coats-of-arms of the towns, but also the town colours, that are derived from the respective arms. How these are actually used and since when, is not described in the book. Most probably the flags would be similar to other Austrian municipal flags, i.e. vertical flags (hanging flag, "Banner" or "Knatterflagge") striped in the colours, and showing the coat-of-arms.
In contrast to the other Länder I have searched for municipal flag photos (especially Upper Austria and Salzburg, and currently in progress Carinthia), I have not found many photos of Vorarlberg municipal flags in the WWW.
Marcus Schmöger, 7 August 2005
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