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Oberfranken District (Germany)

Bezirk Oberfranken, Bavaria

Last modified: 2014-03-24 by klaus-michael schneider
Keywords: oberfranken | upper franconia | base | tierced per pale | lion(black) | quartered(silver-black) | crancelin | franconian rake |
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[Oberfranken District (Bavaria, Germany)] 3:5  image by M. Schmöger, 27 Jan 2001 Other Oberfranken pages: See also:


Oberfranken district

The coat-of-arms of Oberfranken (since 30th May 1960) is very complicated. It combines the Franconian rake with symbols for Bamberg (the lion), the burgraves of Nürnberg (later princes of Brandenburg-Bayreuth: quartered Argent and Sable) and Coburg (the green crancelin). The official flag was adopted and approved together with the arms. It is horizontally divided white-red with the arms in the center.
Source: Linder 1997 which is available online at the Der Flaggenkurier website.
Further information at the Bezirk Oberfranken website (only illustration of the arms).
M. Schmöger, 27 Jan 2001

The lion covered with a thin white line [bendlet sinister] represents the Bishopric of Bamberg which owned large parts of the territory until the area was allocated to Bavaria. This image also appears in the arms of many counties (Kreise) in the area.
Stefan Schwoon, 30 Jan 2001

I have not got yet official information from the Bezirk to clarify the question of how the flag actually looks like, especially if it is used as a normal horizontal flag or as a hanging flag (Banner). A photo taken recently (April 2001) at the Bayreuth town hall shows the flag of the Bezirk Oberfranken as a horizontal flag. The above image is based on this photo. Other variants of the flag are used as well.
M. Schmöger, 10 May 2001

Hanging Flag (Banner)

[Oberfranken District (Bavaria, Germany)] image by M. Schmöger, 21 Oct 2001

Obviously there are also hanging flags used in Oberfranken, not only hoisted (horizontal) flags. My image is made after a drawing in Dieter Linder, The "Höhere Kommunalverbände" in Germany, oral presentation during the 19th International Congress of Vexillology at York (23-27 July 2001).
M. Schmöger, 21 Oct 2001


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