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Tervuren (Municipality, Province of Flemish Brabant, Belgium)

by Filip van Laenen

Description of the flag

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Description of the flag

Tervuren (19,500 inhabitants) is located in the arrondissement of Leuven.
Tervuren may be considered as virtual capital of Congo; its Koloniënpaleis (Palace of the Colonies) was originally built by Prince William of Orange, the later King Willem II of the Netherlands; that building burned down in 1879; it was rebuilt for the World Exposition of 1897, and expanded to harbor the treasures the Belgian kings had gathered in the Congo Free State, later Belgian Congo.

The flag is: Argent, a lion rampant Azure. Proportions are 2:3.

The lion comes from the municipal coat of arms, described as follows:

"The arms were granted on May 29, 1838. The arms show a crowned lion, which already appeared on the oldest known seals of the city, dating from 1312. The lion most likely originally was the lion of Brabant, even though this lion was not normally crowned. In 1435 the city became a possession of Jan Hinckaert, illegitimate son of the Duke of Brabant. His arms were shown on a paining from 1480, and showed a quartered shield with in the first and fourth quarter a silver crowned lion on a black field with silver billets, and in the second and third quarter the Hinckaert arms, a blue crowned lion. Why the council in the 1830s applied only for the Hinckaert arms is not known."

The flag was adopted on 26 May 1987.

Source: Flags of the Low Countries

Jarig Bakker, 1 November 2001