A black bear over a castle, on yellow: the flag of Sarpsborg recalls the medieval count of the city and the fortress that gave it its name.
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 rectangular field with a 3:5 ratio, yellow, with the figures of the city coat of arms in black: it is an armorial flag, the coat of arms put onto cloth.
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 Viking king Olaf Haraldsson, Saint Olaf, founded the town in 1016 with the name Borg, ‘fortress’
The oldest surviving seal, of 1556, already had a bear over a building
From 1855 the town used a red coat of arms with a crown and two axes
The current coat of arms was drawn by the heraldist Hallvard Trætteberg and approved by royal…
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
Sarpsborg is a town in southern Norway, on the river Glomma. Its flag is yellow with a black bear walking over a black castle. Like most Norwegian municipal flags, it copies the coat of arms of the town.
The Viking king Olaf Haraldsson, Saint Olaf, founded the town in 1016 with the name Borg, ‘fortress’. The current coat of arms was drawn by the heraldist Hallvard Trætteberg and approved by royal resolution on 11 March 1966. The flag repeats its figures on the cloth.
The emblem of the town has changed several times. The oldest surviving seal, of 1556, already had a bear over a building. From 1855 the town used a red coat of arms with a crown and two axes, recalling Saint Olaf, and in 1890 it went back to the old seal. The 1966 design simplified everything into a bear and a castle.
Bear
the symbol of Alv Erlingsson, count of Sarpsborg in the late 13th century, who used it to show his strength.
Castle
the fortress, ‘borg’, that gave the town its name. Its two towers recall the two gates of the medieval wall.
In 1702 a landslide made much of the town disappear into the Glomma river, which had already been burnt by the Swedes in 1567.
The solemn version of the coat of arms carries two bears each holding a flag and the Latin motto ‘Non debellicata’, which means ‘undefeated’.
Between 1855 and 1890 the coat of arms of the town carried a crown and two axes, the attribute of Saint Olaf, the king who founded the town.
Test what you have read about the flag of Sarpsborg.
Text based on the article “Sarpsborg, Østfold (Norway) — Flags of the World” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
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