![[Flag of Kinrooi]](../images/b/be-vlikn.gif)
Last modified: 2006-01-14 by ivan sache
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Municipal flag of Kinrooi - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 28 August 2005
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The municipality of Kinrooi (12,000 inhabitants; 5,546 ha) is the
northeasternmost municipality of Limburg and Flanders, limited in the
east by the river Maas, which forms the border with the Netherlands.
The Maas and its gravel pits form popular recreation areas. Since 18
September 1971, the municipality is made of the former municipalities
of Kinrooi, Kessenich, Molenbeersel and Ophoven-Geistingen.
Kessenich is the oldest of the villages forming Kinrooi. In the XIIth
century, the lords of Kessenich built an octogonal tower, now ruined,
on a 10 m high artificial hill in order to watch the valley of Maas.
The Borgitter castle, built in the XVIIIth century with white stone,
incorporates an angle tower from 1610.
Kinrooi is the birth city of the writer Theodoor Sevens (1848-1927).
Source: Municipal website
Kinrooi is mostly a rural municipality. It made the headlines in April 2003, when the second focus of the Dutch-Belgian outbreak of avian influenza (aka as fowl plague) was found in a poultry farm in Kinrooi . According to the mandatory prevention measures, all poultry located i a 3-km radius around the disease focus were slaughtered, that is 270,000 birds from 18 poultry farms.
Ivan Sache, 28 August 2005
The municipal flag of Kinrooi is yellow with three red posthorns
garnished in red placed 2 and 1.
According to Gemeentewapens in België - Vlaanderen en Brussel, the flag was adopted by the Municipal Council on 6 April 1987, confirmed by the Executive of Flanders on 7 July 1987 and published in the Belgian official gazette on 3 December 1987.
The flag is a banner of the canting arms of the former County of Horn
(also spelled Hoorne, Horne, Hoerne...). The family of Horn was
mentioned for the first time in 1102 and originated of the city of
Horn, today part of the municipality of Haelen, in Dutch Limburg. The
Counts of Horn once owned big domains in Limburg, Northern Brabant and
the north of France and their arms are still quite common in the civic
heraldry of these regions. In the Netherlands, one to three horns can
be seen of the (sometimes former) municipal flag and/or arms of Horn, whose flag is nearly identical to the flag of Kinrooi, Haelen, Loon op Zand, Eindhoven, Wessem, Roggel en Neer, Beegden, Hunsel, Weert,
Cranendonck, Heeze-Leende, Waalre, Heythuysen.
The three horns are also shown on the arms of the Belgian city and
province of Liège.
Accordong to the International Civic Heraldry website, the Count of Horn had its own seat in the Dutch Landdag (Parliament)
and was often Great Falconer (hoofd valkenier) of the Netherlands.
After the beheading of Philips de Montmorency, Count of Horn, in 1568,
the County was incorporated to the Principality of Liège and remained
there until the French Revolution suppressed the Principality.
Originally, the arms of the lords of Horn showed three cow horns; the
relationship with the name of the city might be related to the elevated
location of Horn. Later changes in the arms for post or hunting horns
had no historical background. The family of Horn never had anything to
do with the postal service. The hunting horns were explained by the
title of Higher Hunting Master (opperjachtmeester) of the German
Empire, but the family of Horn never had that title. With time, the
arms of Horn have been represented in several different ways but
posthorns have been mostly used.
Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 28 August 2005