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Ormož (Municipality, Slovenia)

Flag of Ormož, horizontal and vertical versions - Images by Željko Heimer, 14 September 2002

Flag of Ormož
Coat of arms of Ormož
Former coat of arms of Ormož

See also:

Flag of Ormož

The flag and arms of Ormož are prescribed by Decision Odlok o simbolih Občine Ormož (text), adopted on 14 February 2000 and published on 16 February 2000 in the local official gazette Uradni vestnik Občine Ormož.

The symbols were designed by Valt Jurečič of Heraldika d.o.o. and Heraldica Slovenica, who kindly provided drawings from which the images shown on this page were made.

The flag of Ormož is of a design characteristic of the Slovenian municipal flags. A cross of unusual shape is made of a combination of an horizontal division in three stripes and a vertical division in three unequal stripes, which is often known as Canadian pale. Therefore, the flag has four rectangles, one in each corner, while the main field forms an unusual wide cross.
The flag of Ormož has such a blue cross on a white field, with the tower, grape and ears from the coat of arms as the central attribute.

The colour specifications are the following:
- Dark yellow: Pantone 109;
- Golden yellow: Pantone 1225;
- Blue: Pantone 300;
- Black: Pantone Black.

Radio Tednik published an article by Majda Fridl about the adoption of the new municipal smybols of Ormož. I translate it in full [my comments in brackets].

Ormož
The new municipal coat of arms and flag.
The golden grape and corn ears in the coat of arms.

The new municipal coat of arms and the flag are smiling towards the Municipality of Ormož. The proposals are exhibited in the first floor of the Ormož castle, in front of the session room of the municipal assembly. The proposals were prepared by the heraldical, genealogical and vexillological society Heraldica Slovenica from Ljubljana under expert leadership by Valt Jurečič.

The heraldry has interchanged sides, left is right and right is left. The heraldists would say that in the Ormož proposal the sun is in the right side of the tower and the moon on its left. That is so because they look at the coat of arms as a person, standing in front of them in mirrored image. [This is a very bad description of the heraldic concetps of dexter and sinister.]
Since Ormož is a historical city with a rich culture, the base for the municipal coat of arms was taken from the old civic coat of arms. Valt Jurečič told us that heraldry is a very precise science with quite strict requirements - the heraldic law. The coat of arms of the city and that of the municipality cannot be the same, since it goes about two legal persons, two different entities, though with much in common. So, the two coat of arms may be similar. The coat of arms of the municipality is therefore based on the coat of arms of its historical city, but with added symbolic. In the example of Ormož, the identity is in the silver tower in blue shield, between a sun right and a moon left of it. In the lower green part there are added two golden corn ears and a grape, as symbols of the general everyday life of the countryside.
Based on the coat of arms were prepared several designs of flag. The international association of the vexillologic societies [FIAV] has very strict rules and hierarchy of flags. [First time I hear that. This just can't be true!] The state flag, the flag of municipality, city and finally that of the local council must be different and there are special rules for each group. [while first part is true, I am not aware of any FIAV rules regarding the division level]. For the municipal flag, for example, it is said that it should not include the image of the coat of arms, while that it not so for the national flag [???]. Similarly, it should not use more than two colours [???]. For the flag of Ormož, the selected colours are white and blue. Since the attributes - the charges from the coat of arms, the tower, the sun and the moon - are in the blue field, while the ears and grape are in the green one, the experts came to a problem. Namely, the third, green colour on the flag is not allowed. Therefore they decided to break some vexillologic standards for the first time in the new Slovene vexillology, and to combine the attributes from two fields of different colours into one field. The golden ears with the grape are taken from the green field and set into blue, of course, only on the flag.

The coat of arms and the flag of the municipality were designed after an expert study and many thoughts by the Heraldica Slovenica society members. Even on pictorial level they are very nice. Valt Jurečič told us that in year 1996 there was adopted the law on heraldic, vexillologic and sigillographic register of Slovenia, to be lead by the State Archive of Slovenia. When the Minister for Culture appoints the commission to collect the coats of arms and the flags into the register, to evaluate and approve them, it shall happen that not all of them shall be confirmed. There exists quite a number of such, some prepared by the municipalities themselves without the experts. Such coats of arms shall need to be expertly redesigned or heraldically expertly improved, so that they shall be inscribed into the register. We are missing the roof law that would determine the rules of the game, but these are already known in Central Europe, and we shall have to follow them.

The coat of arms and the flag of Ormož shall be legally prescribed with the decision on symbols identity by the assembly. Until then one of the proposals for the coat of arms and the flag shall be chosen.

Željko Heimer, 26 June 2010

Coat of arms of Ormož

Coat of arms of Ormož - Image by Željko Heimer, 14 September 2002

The coat of arms of Ormož is based on the traditional coat of arms of the town of Ormož, with the addition of a golden grape and corn ears. Stanič & Jakopič [j2s05] report that the model was a seal dated 1635, very similar to the former municipal coat of arms; Ormož, however, already used seals with the same elements in 1279.

Željko Heimer, 9 May 2006

Former coat of arms of Ormož

Former coat of arms of Ormož - Image by Željko Heimer, 29 April 2000

Neither the flag nor the coat of arms of Ormož are mentioned in Banderas municipales de Eslovenia [drn96i], published in Banderas [ban] #58 (March 1996), but Ormož has been using a coat of arms for quite some time, probably based on some early seal. Such a coat of arms has been used at least since the 1980s, but probably before, too. However, it seems that this civic coat of arms was not officially adopted by the municipality. No flag to go with this coat of arms was reported.

Željko Heimer, 29 April 2000