Flag of Flanders

The flag of Flanders, sometimes called the Vlaamse Leeuw ("Flemish Lion") or leeuwenvlag ("Lion flag"), is the flag of the Flemish Community and Flemish Region in Belgium. The flag was officially adopted by the Cultural Council for the Dutch Cultural Community (Cultuurraad voor de Nederlandse Cultuurgemeenschap) in 1973, and later, in 1985, by its successor, the Flemish Parliament.^[1][2][3][4] In 1990, the coat of arms was also adopted as an official symbol.

Flanders

Flemish Lion (Vlaamse Leeuw)
Proportion	2:3
Adopted	1973 (Cultural Council for the Dutch Cultural Community) 1985 (Flemish Parliament)
Design	Solid yellow with a black lion
coat of arms (Flemish Region)
coat of arms (Flemish community)

The flag of Flanders is described as Or, a lion rampant armed and langued Gules.^[2][3]

The official flag used on a border sign in Menen

History

History of the lion

The Flemish lion derives from the arms of the Counts of Flanders. Their first appearance is on a seal of Count Philip of Alsace, dating from 1163. As such they constitute the oldest of the many territorial arms bearing a lion in the Low Countries. Still, Count Philip was not the first of his line to bear a lion, for his cousin, William of Ypres, already used a seal with a lion passant in 1158; and the shield on the enamel effigy of about 1155 from the tomb of his maternal uncle, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, bears numerous lions rampant.^[5]

Symbol of the Flemish Community

After gaining cultural autonomy in 1972, the then Cultuurraad van de Nederlandse Cultuurgemeenschap (Cultural Council of the Dutch Cultural Community) voted the decree of 22 May 1973 adopting the Flemish lion as its official flag. Shortly afterwards, the Cultuurraad also adopted a coat of arms: Or, a lion rampant sable, armed and langued gules, five mullets sabel in orle. The arms and flag were adopted by the Flemish Community (Decree of 30 March 1988) when it took over the attributions of the Cultuurraad.^[6]

Symbol of the Flemish Movement

Use of the lion

Like many other nationalist movements, the Flemish movement sought and appropriated historical symbols as an instrument for rallying support. The choice of the Flemish lion was primarily based on the popular historical novel De leeuw van Vlaanderen^[7] (1838) of Hendrik Conscience, that forged the Battle of the Golden Spurs of 11 July 1302 into an icon of Flemish resistance against foreign oppression. It was enhanced even further when Hippoliet van Peene wrote the anthem De Vlaamse Leeuw in 1847. By the late nineteenth century it was customary for supporters of the Flemish movement to fly the Flemish lion on 11 July.^[8]

Controversy over the claws and tongue

There is discussion within the Flemish movement whether the tongue and claws of the Flemish lion should be red or black.

This controversy originated when part of the Flemish movement started to take an increasingly anti-Belgian stand after the First World War and even more after the second world war, after the Flemish SS promoted the use of the full black lion and after the war was seen as the symbol of collaboration with the nazis. The radicalized resented that the colours of the Flemish lion echoed those of the Belgian flag and therefore propagated a black lion with black tongue and claws. The divide has remained ever since. Officially and historically the Flemish lion should have a red tongue and claws, and while both flags used to be more or less interchangeable until 1973 the entirely black lion has come to stand for the separatist or otherwise radical sections of Flemish nationalism in the eyes of many.^[9][10]

Historic Flemish flags

Flag	Date	Use
National Flags
	1988-now	Official flag of the Flemish Region and Community (Belgium)[11]
	863-1794	Flag of the County of Flanders
Other Historic Flag
	1188-1192	Flag (banner) of the County of Flanders during the Third Crusade[12][13]

Variants

Flag of Flanders (communities and regions)

Flag	Date	Use
	1988-now	Official flag of the Flemish Region (Belgium)
	1992-now	Flag of the Flemish community commission (Brussels)

Political flags

Flag	Date	Use
Separatist or Independence flags
	1988-now	Official flag of the Flemish Region and Community (Belgium)
	1900-now	A variant of the Flemish flag, ("strijdvlag" or "Battle flag"), This (fully black) Flemish lion is (officially) used by separatist and independence movements for Flanders[14]

Flag of Non-Belgian Flemish regions

Flag	Date	Use
	2003-now	Flag of Zeelandic Flanders (Dutch region)
	1972-2016	Flag of the (former) French region Nord-Pas-de-Calais
	2016-now	Official flag of the French departement Nord (French Flanders)

Other variants

Flag	Date	Use
	1351-1370	Variant of the Flag of the County of Flanders in the "Book of All Kingdoms"[15]

See also

• Coat of arms of Flanders
• List of Belgian flags
• Flag of Belgium
• Flag of Wallonia
• Flag of the Brussels-Capital Region