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

Bas-Rhin (Department, France)

Flag of the department of Bas-Rhin - Image by Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 24 October 2009

See also:

Administrative data

Code: 67
Region: Alsace
Traditional province: Alsace
Bordering departments: Moselle, Haut-Rhin, Vosges
Bordering country: Germany (Federal States of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg)

Area: 4,755 km²
Population (2005): 1,063,000 inhabitants

Préfecture: Strasbourg
Sous-préfectures: Haguenau, Molsheim, Saverne, Sélestat, Wissembourg
Subdivisions: 7 arrondissements, 44 cantons, 527 communes.

The department is named ("Lower-Rhine") after river Rhine.

Ivan Sache, 14 November 2009

Flag of Bas-Rhin

As reported by Pascal Vagnat in May 2009, the flag of the Department of Bas-Rhin is hoisted over the building of the General Council at Strasbourg and over the Castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg, located near Sélestat.
The flag is a banner of the arms of the department, De gueules à la barre d'argent accompagnée de deux cotices fleuronnées du même ("Gules a bend cotised fleury argent"), officially adopted on 5 May 1948. These are the former arms of Lower-Alsace, which also appear on the flag of Region Alsace and on the flag of the traditional Province of Alsace (as a bend sinister).

According to Brian Timms, the arms appeared for the first time in 1262, on a seal of the Counts of Werd, who were Landgraves of Lower- Alsace in 1156, and the arms with these tinctures are found in an English Roll of the 13th century.

Ivan Sache, 24 October 2009