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Bas-Rhin (Department, France)

Flag of the department of Bas-Rhin - Image by Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 24 October 2009

See also:

Administrative data

Code: 67
Region: Alsace
Traditional province: Alsace
Bordering departments: Moselle, Haut-Rhin, Vosges
Bordering country: Germany (Federal States of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg)

Area: 4,755 km²
Population (2005): 1,063,000 inhabitants

Préfecture: Strasbourg
Sous-préfectures: Haguenau, Molsheim, Saverne, Sélestat, Wissembourg
Subdivisions: 7 arrondissements, 44 cantons, 527 communes.

The department is named ("Lower-Rhine") after river Rhine.

Ivan Sache, 14 November 2009

Flag of Bas-Rhin

As reported by Pascal Vagnat in May 2009, the flag of the Department of Bas-Rhin is hoisted over the building of the General Council at Strasbourg and over the Castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg, located near Sélestat.
The flag is a banner of the arms of the department, De gueules à la barre d'argent accompagnée de deux cotices fleuronnées du même ("Gules a bend cotised fleury argent"), officially adopted on 5 May 1948. These are the former arms of Lower-Alsace, which also appear on the flag of Region Alsace and on the flag of the traditional Province of Alsace (as a bend sinister).

According to Brian Timms, the arms appeared for the first time in 1262, on a seal of the Counts of Werd, who were Landgraves of Lower- Alsace in 1156, and the arms with these tinctures are found in an English Roll of the 13th century.

Ivan Sache, 24 October 2009

Flag of the General Council of Bas-Rhin

Flag of the General Council of Bas-Rhin - Image by Ivan Sache, 20 September 2010

The flag of the General Counci of Bas-Rhin, as hoisted, together with the flags of Bas-Rhin, France and the European Union, in front of the General Council's Hall in Strasbourg, is dark red with the General Council's logo in the middle.

The left quarter of the logo of the General Council is made of the stylized map of the department, in dark red, flanked on its right by a white stripe and a light blue stripe representing river Rhine, which forms the border with Germany. The rest of the logo is made of the writing "CONSEIL GÉNÉRAL / BAS-RHIN" in black letters, the hyphen being dark red.
This logo, adopted in January 2010, is a modernization of the previous logo, which used a geographic map of the department crossed by a white diagonal, seriffed letters and the institution's name bigger than the department's name. The rounding of all the elements is expected to convey ideas of modernity and dynamism. The change in the respective proportions of the letters put the emphasis on the territory rather than on the institution. The dark red colour of the hyphen seems also to be a significant element.
The new logo is part of the new graphic chart of the department, which also includes the redesign of the official website. Guy-Dominique Kennel, the President of the General Council, said that the V.O. (Voituriez & Obringer) agency, from Strasbourg, was paid 17,000 € for the new chart; Denis Lieb, General Councillor of Sarre-Union, however, found an official document allocating 47,000 € to the agency (Les Dernières Nouvelles du Lundi, 31 May 2010).

Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 20 September 2010