Flags and arms of cantons of Switzerland

The coats of arms of the Thirteen Cantons are based on medieval signs, originating as war flags and as emblems used on seals.

Papal legate Matthias Schiner in addition gave to the Swiss cantons and their associates a total of 42 costly silk banners with augmentations, the so-called Juliusbanner.

The fashion of arranging cantonal insignia in shields (escutcheons) as coats of arms arises in the late 15th century.

In the 13th century, its flag showed a black bear in a white field, changed to the current red-and-yellow diagonal arrangement in 1289.

The vertical division of the coat or arms has been explained as due to a gonfalon type of banner used by Lucerne, hung from a horizontal crossbar, which was also used as a flagstaff, so that the flag was turned by 90 degrees when carried in battle.

Pope Sixtus IV confirmed this addition in 1480, stating explicitly that the crown of thorns and the nails (Arma Christi) should be shown.

From c. 1360, Obwalden and Nidwalden were separated into two independent territories, while keeping a single vote in the confederate diet.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the coat of arms of the combined canton of Unterwalden came to be depicted as a superposition of the red-and-white flag of Obwalden and the double-key of Nidwalden.

Only by the beginning 17th century a standard design was established, showing the Saint as a pilgrim in silver on a red field.

[citation needed] The oldest seal of the city dates to 1225 and shows the Zähringer coat of arms.

It is of unknown origin or significance (beyond its obvious status of bishop's crozier), but it is assumed to have represented a relic, possibly attributed to Saint Germanus of Granfelden.

There were a number of other design changes during the 20th century; from the 1930s[dubious – discuss] until 1951, a black Swiss cross was placed on the axe blade to avoid association with the fasces as used as a symbol of Italian fascism.

[30] A combined coat of arms with the same division of the shield as in the modern version (but with the position of the leagues of God's House and of the Ten Jurisdiction reversed) is already found on the Patenpfenning minted by Jacob Stampfer in 1547.

The canton of Aargau was created as an administrative division of the Helvetic Republic, and its flag is an original design by Samuel Ringier-Seelmatter of Zofingen (1767–1826), dating to 1803.

Like Aargau, Thurgau (Turgovia) was historically a subject territory of the confederacy, and was created as a canton of the Helvetic Republic.

The flag design is an ad hoc creation of 1803, based on the two lions in the coat of arms of the House of Kyburg which ruled Thurgau in the 13th century.

The green-and-white were regarded as "revolutionary" colours in 1803, also introduced in the coats of arms of St. Gallen and Vaud, but the placement of a yellow lion on white is a violation of heraldic principles, and also creates a visibility problem.

The design dates to 1803, based on the flag used in the Vaudois insurrection against Bernese rule in the 1790s, which was green and inscribed with Liberté, Egalité in white lettering.

As such, it violates the heraldic rule of tincture which states that gold (or yellow) may not be placed upon silver (or white).

The coat of arms of Valais originates in 1613, as the subject territories of the bishop were united into a republic, the stars representing the individual Dixains.

In the 1803 Act of Mediation, Napoleon separated the Valais from the restored Swiss Confederacy, and in 1810 he annexed it into the Department of Simplon.

The canton of Neuchâtel was admitted to the restored Swiss Confederacy in 1815, but with the peculiar reservation that it owed nominal fealty to the king of Prussia.

The conflict between monarchists by 1856 threatened to devolve into full civil war, but in 1857, Frederick William IV of Prussia renounced all claims to Neuchâtel, and the 1848 revolutionary banner was made the official cantonal flag.

The flag of the medieval bishopric of Geneva showed two golden Keys of Peter in the red field of the imperial Blutbanner since 1293.

The full heraldic achievement of Geneva includes a crest in the form of half a sun inscribed with JHS (for Jesus Hominum Salvator), and a scroll below the shield with the motto Post Tenebras Lux.

The separatist movement which eventually led to the canton's creation emerged in the 1940s, and the flag is a design by Paul Boesch, dated to 1943.

The seven stripes were retained in the cantonal flag regardless, and there remains some irredentism calling for a restored unity of all seven districts.