Last modified: 2003-02-01 by rob raeside
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**Note: Saarland (1947-1956) is a white Scandinavian cross on a bi-colour base, blue in the hoist, red in the fly.
I recently received the INFO bulletin of the "Vlaggen Dokumentatie Centrum Nederland" (Flad Documentation Center of the Netherlands). It lists a number of flags using the nordic cross design. Derk (Derkwillem Visser, Jr.; the editor) states that they come from "Under Nordisk Flagg" (Under the Northern Flags) by Per Andersson.
William M. Grimes-Wyatt, 6 March 1996
Corrections and additions by Jan Oskar Engene, Zeljko Heimer and Pascal Vagnat.
Two other books may be of interest:
Both books are in Swedish. The latter one is more concentrated on flags than the former. One problem with these works is that there are no references, so we are often not told when and where the flags surfaced. I am sceptical towards the existence of some of them. Probably, quite a few of the designs are merely proposals. The lack of references and documentation in the booklets mentioned, made it difficult to decide the status of some of the flags.
Jan Oskar Engene, 7 March 1996
A Scandinavian cross would by most vexillologists be defined as a
straight-armed cross on a flag which goes out to the ends of the flag and which have the centre of the cross set closer to the hoist than to the fly.
Elias Grandqvist, 13 April 2001
The term Scandinavian cross is used to describe a 'hoist-ward off-set straight-armed orthogonal cross throughout' when this is appropriate, that is, when there is indeed a connection to Scandinavia, and not to do so otherwise.
Some vexillologists would insist that the connection to Scandinavia is
essential, others don't.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 4 July 2001
I don't know if you can say for sure, exactly how many flags with Scandinavian crosses there are. It depends a bit on what flag you want to consider. Some flags with
Scandinavian crosses are unofficial, private initiatives for some geographical areas, others are merely proposals which might never really have been in use.
There are 5 countries in the world today which have flags with Scandinavian crosses as their official national flags. All
of them also have Scandinavian crosses in their state and/or their war flags. Would the later special flags count as flags on their own when counting the flags with
Scandinavian crosses?
Elias Grandqvist, 13 April 2001
Elias Grandqvist, 13 April 2001
