Czech Republic's Coats of Arms

Last modified: 2002-09-28 by jarig bakker
Keywords: czech republic | moravia | bohemia | silesia |
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• The small Arms
• The greater Arms

• Czech Republic
• Law about the Czech national symbols
• Czechoslovakian Arms

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The small Arms

The smaller state arms are a shield displaying only the arms of Bohemia (the silver lion on red which takes up the first and forth fields in the greater state arms). (I would also guess, that these smaller and greater state arms are the ones that were adopted in 1990, as stated further up on the page (under the headline "1990-1992 flag"). The greater state arms can be seen below and on the President's flag.
Elias Granqvist, 2 Sep 2000

Since 1918 these lions were used on CoAs:

1. 1920-1939 (Republic of Czechoslovakia's COA accepted two years after dissolution of Austria-Hungary, used also by exile government in 1940-1945)

2. 1939-1945 (Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia)

3. 1945-1960 *the same* as 1 (before accepting the constitution of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1960, both official name and COAs of the pre-WWII Republic of Czechoslovakia remained unchanged - no "People's Democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia" has ever existed!)

4. 1960-1990 (socialist COA with "hussite shield", which however is not "hussite" in any way)

5. 1990-1992 (Czechoslovak Federal Republic, later Czech and Slovak Federal Republic), the same lion used in the COA of the Czech Republic

6. since 1993 (similar to 5, only minor modification of shapes of the shield, lions, and eagles)
Jan Zrzavy, 9 March 2001

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The greater Arms

[lou81] shows the traditional arms of the areas: Bohemia, a crowned silver double-tailed lion on a red background (hence the white and red flag); Moravia, a checky red and white eagle on a blue field; Silesia, a black eagle (with a white thing on the breast called a kleestengel in German -- cloverstalk in English) on gold.
John Andrew Lowe, 14 Oct 1995