Flag of Solothurn

The flag of Solothurn is the simplest in Switzerland: red above, white below, with no figures or coats of arms. It is the only canton with that bare division, and its colours are considered those of its patron saint.

How it came about

Solothurn venerates Saint Urs, who according to legend was beheaded by the bridge over the Aare and whose body, headless, went on walking to his burial. The city’s seal has depicted him since 1394 on a red and white ground identical to the current one, so those are indeed the colours of the saint. There are two theories about where those colours came from. The first attributes them to the vexillum of the Theban Legion, the Roman unit massacred in Switzerland in 302 for refusing to persecute the Christians; Urs would have been an officer of that legion. The second, less credible to historians, says Solothurn copied the colours of Austria.

How it has changed

The two colours have not moved since the seal of 1394; no coat of arms, no keys, no crosses: Solothurn is the only Swiss canton whose standard is simply red and white divided.

What it means

• Red and white: the colours of Saint Urs, patron of Solothurn; perhaps the standard of the Theban Legion, according to the most repeated theory.

Fun facts

1. The saint who picked up his head

   The legend holds that Urs’s headless body came out of the river, retrieved his head and walked alone to the place of his tomb; that is why he is patron of the city and of its flag.

2. Solothurn joined the Confederation with a banned flag

   In 1481 Solothurn was admitted on the same day as Fribourg, and Obwalden voted against because it carried the identical red and white since the thirteenth century.

3. A Celtic name

   Solothurn comes from Solodurum, a Celtic name whose ending -durum means gate: the city was a gateway to the Helvetic territory.

Localisation