A white double-bitten key on a red ground: the emblem of Nidwalden, taken from Saint Peter, the patron of the church of Stans.
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, red and plain, with a white double-bitten key in the centre, set upright.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
A red field with a white double-bitten key in the centre: the flag of Nidwalden, a single figure which tradition says a pope gave away.
Nidwalden and Obwalden together formed Unterwalden, “the country under the forest”, in the founding pact of the Confederation of 1291. The united territory carried a red and white banner; when the two halves separated, Obwalden kept the colours and Nidwalden took a double key as its standard, documented from the beginning of the fifteenth century. The key is the attribute of Saint Peter, patron of the church of Stans, doubled so as not to be confused with Obwalden.
The design has been the same since the fifteenth century, with no modern rule fixing it. Only the handle of the key changes in the more medieval versions: clover-shaped, the so-called Kräpfligriff.
Key
that of Saint Peter, patron of the church of Stans.
Two opposing bits
the feature that distinguishes Nidwalden from Obwalden.
Red
the colour of the primitive banner of Unterwalden.
The standard that Pope Julius II sent to Nidwalden in 1512 claimed in its inscription that Pope Anastasius had given the double key to the town for defending Rome from the Goths: a fable with no basis.
Decades later, Obwalden hung the same inscription on its standard, changing only the name: Flags of the World calls it a swindle.
On 9 September 1798 French troops attacked Nidwalden, which rejected the Helvetic Constitution: a devastated country, at least four hundred dead.
Test what you have read about the flag of Nidwalden.
Flag image: Autor desconocido, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
