Last modified: 2018-12-15 by rob raeside
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Another question is whether Den Haag is a city or a village. The homepage of the municipality has devoted a page to it, which boils down to the fact, that if the son of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte would marry in Den Haag it would be the "bonne ville de La Haye". Since that never happened Den Haag is still a village - which is a very trivial fact as the Dutch constitution makes no distinction any more between cities and villages since 1848. What counts is that Den Haag is a municipality, and equal in greatness to illustrious names as Schiermonnikoog and Gulpen-Wittem :-)
Den Haag's flag-history is described in Sierksma's Nederlands Vlaggenboek
1962 [sie62]:
Description: Two equally wide horizontal stripes of green and yellow.
This flag was adopted by municipal resolution on 2 Dec 1920, and confirmed,
after the colors black and yellow had been used for some time. In March
1857 the Mayor informed the Minister of Interior Affairs that on special
occasions the flag of yellow and black was used. Now the municipality has
revived an older tradition: local letters in Den Haag had been enveloped
by green-yellow ribbons. Moreover there are images of the municipal arms,
which are divided golden and green.
Derkwillem Visser's Gemeentevlaggen en wapens Koninkrijk der Nederlanden.
2001, adds:
On 28 Mar 1949 this was changed - the stripes were reversed and the
color green was changed.
Jarig Bakker, 17 Jun 2003
The national capital
of the Netherlands is Amsterdam. Den Haag is
"only" the seat of administration and the government. Amsterdam has been
the capital for about 200 years. The separation of administrative center and capital city
is pretty much unique to the Netherlands. It is said that laws are made in
Den Haag and that everything *not done* is being practised in Amsterdam.
Jarig Bakker, 18 Feb 2006
Granted 24 Jul 1816; confirmed 19 Oct 1954.