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Petrijanec (Varazdin County, Croatia)

by Zeljko Heimer, 15 Febuary 2003

Overview
Coat of Arms

See also:

Overview

The community of Petrijanec is about 25 km NW of Varaždin, up the Drava river, in Varaždin County. The main settlement Pertijanec has about 4,700 inhabitants (1993). The coat of arms and the flag are described in the statutes of the community: Statut Opcine Petrijanec, 27.03.2002, Službeni vjesnik Varaždinske županije, 6/02. Issued in the official gazette abailable at <www.glasila.hr>.
The CoA is shown on the county web site <www.varazdinska>, as well as on the community site at <www.petrijanec.hr>, that includes several graphic representations of the CoA and some photos of the flag in use (not very clear, though).
The coat of arms is chequy of nine gules and argent and overall an oval escutcheon bordered with golden Croatian wattle, in white field black lined Community Hall on green base with a blue spring. The central red cheque of the chequey field is not visible, so it may have as well been blazoned as gules a cross argent, but description in the statutes is clear that it is a 3x3 chequey field. The wattle oval is, as far as I could judge, entirely the same as the one used in the military emblems (cf. naval positional flags for Minister of defence and others of the sort). Of course, military has no copyright on the wattle, it being the part of Croatian tradition, but still there are so many variations in layout that it can't be coincidence. Possibly there is some explanation beside pure plagiarism.
The flag is blue-white-blue triband with the coat of arms in the middle. The statutes prescribe ratio 1:2 (of course), but also it determines that the coat of arms should be in the middle, entering the blue stripes up till 1/3 of their width.
This is among the rare example of non-monocoloured community flags in Croatia. What is the reason for it, and if this was approved by the ministry I do not know. I can only speculate that it is, since it is repeated in 2002 statutes (it must have been adopted earlier), and it is obviously used by the community. Possibly it was adopted before the Ministry issued guidelines requiring uniform flags, or they may be some historical precedence to allow it.
Regarding the shade of blue, it seems that on all drawn images it is light blue shade, but as it appears on the photo of the flag used in front of the Community Hall, it seems dark blue is used, equal to the blue in the national flag hoisted next to it.
The ceremonial flag is prescribed to be the same with golden fringe on three edges.
Zeljko Heimer, 15 February 2003

Coat of Arms

by Zeljko Heimer, 15 Febuary 2003