A very stylised black crozier, with the hook towards the flagpole, on a white field: the symbol of the prince-bishop who ruled Basel for centuries.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.
It is a square field —the cloth of the flag —with a 1:1 ratio, white, with a black crozier in the centre: a crozier is the hooked staff of a bishop.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
Every date in its story, at a glance.
The crozier of the city already had its stylised shape in 1249
It joined the Confederation in 1501
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
Basel-City is a city-state with one of the simplest flags in Switzerland: a black crozier on a white field, with the curve facing the flagpole.
Basel was ruled for centuries by a prince-bishop, whose diocese, founded according to tradition in the year 346, was the most important in the Upper Rhine. The crozier of the city already had its stylised shape in 1249; it was red, and according to Flags of the World it became black around 1356, when the city bought its freedoms from the bishop. It joined the Confederation in 1501.
It has not changed since the late Middle Ages, and no modern rule fixed the design: it is still the banner of the medieval shield.
Crozier
the bishop’s crook; since early Christianity it means guidance, authority and correction.
Curve towards the flagpole
in the city it faces the mast; Basel-Country, its former subject, draws it the other way round.
Three-pointed tip
the royal iron with which shepherds drove the staff into the ground.
The oldest surviving flag of Basel is Italian silk printed with pomegranates; the black crozier is sewn on top of it.
The crook was red at first: the change to black is associated with the liberation from the bishop in 1356, although no document fixes the date.
Besides the famous basilisk, the griffin is the heraldic animal of Basel: it appears in sixteenth-century stained glass holding the shield.
Test what you have read about the flag of Basel-City.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Edi Hauri, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
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