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Vilhelmina (Sweden)

Last modified: 2021-08-25 by christopher oehler
Keywords: vilhelmina | spears |
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About the flag

Not all municipalities use flags for themselves, but all municipalities are considered to have a flag in the form of a banner-of-arms if they have a coat-of-arms - which, as it is, all of them have nowadays.
Vilhelmina is a municipality in northern Sweden. I haven't found any evidence as to if it uses a flag, but if it was using a flag, I suppose it would use the colour specifications given in the municipality's graphic profile: http://www.vilhelmina.se/homepage_vilhelmina/_Huvudrubrik%20AO/Manualer/Grafisk%20profil.pdf?Templates=vilpublisering&leftmenutop=ao&tconf=Manualer

The crown in the arms is for Queen Fredrika Dorothea Vilhelmina, the wife of King Gustaf IV Adolf. The parish and therefor the municipality is named for her. The hat is a traditional hat of the Saami people and the spears are for hunting wolves. The arms were suggested by Mr. Verner Ahlberg, who was a precentor in Vilhelmina.
Elias Granqvist
, 06 June 2011


Blazon

The official blazon of the arms in Swedish, written in 1949 and re-registered in 1981: "I silver två korslagda blå vargspjut, försedda nedtill med skoning och upptill med renhornsslida över spetsen, allt i rött, under en med röda bårder på silver försedd blå lappmössa, med tre kilar synliga, och däröver en av en vågskura bildad blå ginstam, belagd med en öppen krona av silver."
Litterature: [nev92], pp. 157-8.
Elias Granqvist, 06 June 2011

Well, that may be so, but in 1949 there were two Vilhelmina-s, if I got this right: Town and country. Does that mean these were the arms for one of them? That must have been town, then, as country had different arms, which I absent-mindedly forgot to bookmark. That would lead us to the question of how long municipal arms in Sweden have implied a banner of arms, as it might mean country had a BoA as well.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 06 June 2011

The present arms were for the town (köping) in those days. Banners of arms were used for municipalities in those days too. I acctually don't know when the practice started, but I think it goes back to at least the early 20th Century.
Elias Granqvist, 06 June 2011


image located by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 07 June 2011

OK, so (now that I found another reference) these would de jure have had a banner of arms as well:
http://www.debatthuset.com/forums/showpost.php?p=440915&postcount=60:
Quoting Marcus Karlsson: "Vilhelmina landskommun, vapnet fastställt av Kungl. Maj:t 1950.09.15 och upphört 1965.01.01.
Blasonering: i blått fält under en krona två av vågskuror bildade bjälkar, allt av silver.
Kronan syftar på den namngivande drottningen - Gustaf IV Adolfs hustru. Bjälkarna syftar på älvdalaran Kultsjödalen och Malgomajdalen."
(Vilhelmina rural municipality, arms established by the Crown 15 September 1950 and ended 1 January 1965.
Blazon: Blue, below a crown two bars wavy all argent.  The crown refers to the queen of its name - Gustaf IV Adolf's wife. The bars refer to the dales of Kultsjödalen and Malgomajdalen.)
From the same page, a grey-scale image of the arms.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 07 June 2011