La Chaux-de-Fonds commune (Neuchâtel canton, Switzerland)

Last modified: 2011-10-29 by rob raeside
Keywords: la chaux-de-fonds | beehive | bees |
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• Banner of arms
• Alternate flag

• Switzerland
• Neuchâtel canton

La Chaux-de-Fonds Banner of Arms

Tierced per fess, Azure three Mullets of Five Argent in fess, Argent a Hive Or surrounded by seven Bees of the same, and chequy [of 7x3] Argent and Azure.
Željko Heimer, 27 May 2000

I saw in loco in La Chaux-de-Fonds and on stickers and souvenir flags I bought there, the bottom area is made up of 3x7 squares, thus occupying not 1/3rd of the flag's height (and area) but 3/7ths.  Moreover, on real flags the beehive has no "door" and looks quite stylized.
António Martins, 28 May 2000

I received a colour picture from a lady working for La Chaux-de-Fonds municipal archives showing the official flag in which the 3 stripes are of equal height with 3x7 rectangles on the bottom stripe. I doubted how to draw this flag and I phoned La Chaux-de-Fonds to be as accurate as possible and they kindly sent me this photograph. Maybe there are several ways to draw the flag but I think that 3 equal stripes is the most elegant.
Pascal Gross, 29 May 2000

The livery colours of La Chaux-de-Fonds, are blue-white-gold, the latter being remarkably orangeish.
António Martins, 23 April 2001

Alternate Flag

image by ND, 11 August 2008

In travel in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, I have never seen the flag presented here. Instead, I have seen a triband flag in four different places.
ND, 11 August 2008

The three colours obviously are those appearing in the arms, but only two of those are used in flags that incorporate the arms. Is this difference common or is this an exception?
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 12 August 2008

I was in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1991 and again in 1996, for a week each time, and reported that the square banner of arms is indeed in use, albeit seldom, and that Knatterfahnen in the livery colors (vertical tricolors of blue, white and dark yellow) are a very common sight. That is surely what Nicolas saw.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 12 August 2008