^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Chablais Region (Switzerland, France)

by Pascal Gross

Argent Billety of Sable, a Lion rampant of the same langued and armed Gules.

Zeljko Heimer, 26 June 2000

Use of the flag

See also:

Use of the flag

The Chablais region is split between two cantons, Vaud and Valais, and France (see www.chablais.ch to learn more). This flag can be seen flying at the amusement park "Swiss Steam Park" www.swissvapeur.ch) which shows steam and electric railways at 1:4 scale in a reconstructed landscape with some typical monuments of the area.

Pascal Gross, 25 June 2000

I am really puzzled by the status and origin of this flag. Pascal presents it as a Swiss flag, but the independentists of the Ligue Savoisienne present it as the future (and traditional) flag of the province of Chablais.
It is evidently a banner of arms, but of arms of what? Whatever the leaguists may invent, there never existed a unified feudal entity named "Chablais" (as said in the site found by Pascal, Chablais is a geographical rather than historical entity). There were in the area several feudal families which competed with each other and were in permanent state of low-intensity war. Moreover, the area was under strong religious influence, with the three powerful abbeys of Abondance, Saint-Jean d'Aulps and Saint-Maurice d'Agaune. The region was in the front line of the Counter-Reformation against the calvinist Republic of Geneva. There is no historical evidence of "provinces" in the former duchy of Savoy. The geographical entities, such as Chablais, Faucigny and Genevois, might have matched some feudal possessions, but there was no such formal administrative organization in the duchy.
Last, but not least, this flag is absolutely unknown in the French Chablais! So its attribution as ch-chabl.gif reflects the reality.

Ivan Sache, 2 July 2000