University flag (The Netherlands)

Universiteitsvlag (Nederland)

Last modified: 2001-03-09 by franc van diest
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António Martins, 14 February 2000

• Description of the flag

See also:

• Ecology
• The Netherlands
• The Netherlands - Index of all pages

I know of a flag Universiteit (University), seven horizontal stripes: light blue, dark blue, yellow, purple, pink, red, green. It is ordered now and then by several universities in the Netherlands.

What's the connection between the Universities and ecology? The only connection I could think of is that it's used by university students in pro-ecology manifestations etc.

Armand Heijnen: ''De universitaire zeven-kleur'', U-blad, 23 maart 1984: "... Over die universiteitsvlag is vrijwel niets bekend, maar wat in ieder
geval duidelijk is: er klop, heraldisch gezien niks van. De vlag bestaat uit zeven horizontale, gekleurde banen: roze staat voor
theolgie, rood voor rechtsgeleerdheid, groen voor geneeskunde, geel voor wis- en natuurkunde, donkerblauw voor letteren, paars
voor diergeneeskunde en lichtblauw voor de sociale wetenschappen. De universiteit bestaat uit precies zeven
fakulteiten; de rest is sub-, inter- of centrale fakulteit, dus nog wel onder te brengen bij een van die zeven ...''

Jos Poels, 29 September 2000

Translation (Ed)

quote from Armand Heijnen in the University magazine from 23 March 1984..."...There is not all that much known about the University flag, what is clear however, is that Heraldicly speaking it's all wrong. The flag consists of 7 horizontal, coloured stripes, the coloured stripes stand for : Pink - Theology, Red - Justice, Green - Medicine, Yellow - Mathematics and Physical science, Dark Blue - Literature, Purple - Vetenary, Light Blue - Social sciences. The University has in fact got 7 Faculties: the rest are either sub-faculties, inter-faculties or core-faculties, and can all be brought under one of the main faculties."

Reaction by Hendrik van der Velden:
For as far as I know, only the Utrecht University uses a flag that matches your description in some way. >The seven stripes however are coloured -from top to bottom: pink, red, green, yellow, blue, purple, light >blue. Those seven colours match with the seven chapter-faculties of the university, in order of their >anciennity (oldest most up, youngest most down):
>1) pink: facultas theologiae, faculty of theology
>2) red: facultas iuridica, faculty of law
>3) green: facultas medica, faculty of medicine
>4) yellow: facultas disciplinarum physicarum et mathematicarum, faculty of mathematics and sciences
>5) blue: facultas litterarum, faculty of arts
>6) purple: facultas medicinae veterinariae, faculty of veterinarian medicine
>7) light blue: faculty of social sciences (I do not know the latin name, as the faculty was founded after >abolishing the use of the latin lecture board, in which the latin names were used.)
There is no connection with any ecological organization, nor is the flag as described by me used by any >other than the Utrecht University, although I do not know if any other Dutch university has a similar flag >with different colours.
I hope I've been at your service.
Yours truly,
drs. H.P. van der Velden
Utrecht  19 December 2000

By coincidence I received a reprint of a calender for 1900 by T, van der Laars with flags and coat-of-arms from Dutch provinces and their cities.
The plate for South Holland shows a flag labeled 'Facult.kl. Leiden' ('Faculty colours Leiden'): horizontal five stripes dark green (?), red, black, white and blue.

The one for Utrecht shows 'Faciliteitskleuren' ('Faculty colours') red, yellow, blue, pink (?), green (?).

And the one for Groningen shows one red, white, yellow, purple (?), blue.
This one has proportions 1:2 and has a swallow tail.