Lapland
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The Lapland coat of arms


The Swedish Lapland coats of arms

Coat of arms Lappland The wildman as a sign for Lapland in the first Lapland coat of arms was first used at the time of the coronation of the Swedish king Carl IX in 1607. It was also used as arms for Lapland at the king's funeral in 1612. Here the wildman was black.

The Swedish part of Lapland originally had the same arms as the part of Lapland in Finland, but since Lapland was split in two due to Sweden's loss of Finland in 1809, the arms of the two parts of Lapland have eventually come to have different tinctures.

The heraldic description in English goes like this: "Gules, a wildman proper, holding in his dexter hand and carrying on his dexter shoulder a club or, around his forehead and waist each a garland vert. The shield's crown is a count's crown."

The wild man in the Lapland coat of arms of historical province of Lapland is "of natural color" i.e. pink, but in the modern coat of arms of the province (län) of Lapland and in the coat of arms of the county (landskap) the man is silver (in flag white).

The Finnish Lapland (Lappi) flag

coat of arms Lappi The arms (and flag) of (Finnish) Lapland looks like the arms of (Swedish) Lapland, only the tinctures are a bit different. Swedish Lapland has a wildman gules on a field argent.

Originally, the arms were the same, because Lapland was one province until 1809. Then it was split in two and what now is Finnish Lapland was given to Russia along with Finland and became a part of the Grand Duchy of Finland.

The Swedish part of Lapland originally had the same arms as the part of Lapland in Finland, but since Lapland was split in two due to Sweden's los of Finland in 1809, the arms of the two parts of Lapland have eventually come to have different tinctures. The red right-hand field of the coat of arms of the Province of Finnish Lapland displays a wild man, the traditional heraldic symbol of the province. He is silver-coloured, rather than flesh-coloured as in the coat of arms of the historical Lapland.

As the historical province of Ostrobothnia used to extend to the territory of the present-day administrative province of Lapland, the blue left-hand field displays three silver-coloured ermines.

The Norwegian Lapland (Finnmark) flag

Coat of arms Finnmark The coat of arms shows a single-towered castle. It is young as it dates back only to 1967. It shows the old Vardøhus fortress at Vardø.

The first fortification was erected by Haakon V Magnusson in 1306 and was called Varghoeya. It is not known how long this fort was manned, but in 1307 the Archbishop for Trondhjem went to Vardøhus to consecrate the church.

The second was the fortification Østervågen (East Bay) which was erected between 1450 and 1500. This fortification was rectangular with two corner bastions. It appears on various maps from the 14th and 15th century.

Read more about the Lapland coat of arms and of the rest of Finland. Read also more about the coats of arms of Norway and of Sweden.


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