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Great Spa Towns of Europe network

Flags of the Great Spa Towns of Europe network - Images by Olivier Touzeau, 2 June 2025

Presentation of the Great Spa Towns of Europe network
Flags of the Great Spa Towns of Europe network

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Presentation of the Great Spa Towns of Europe network

The Great Spa Towns of Europe (website) is a transnational World Heritage Site consisting of a selection of 11 spa towns across seven European countries. They were developed around natural mineral water springs. They are: Baden bei Wien (AT), Spa (BE), Františkovy Lázně, Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně (CZ), Vichy (FR), Bad Ems, Baden-Baden, Bad Kissingen (DE), Montecatini Terme (IT), Bath (GB).

In 1987 the city of Bath became the first spa town in the world to be registered on the list the World Heritage List by UNESCO. By the 2000s spa towns in Belgium, the Czech Republic and Germany were also seeking this prestigious inscription and UNESCO, supported by its advisory body ICOMOS, suggested that a global study be undertaken "to explore the potential of a serial nomination being developed to express the outstanding universal value of the European spa phenomenon."
An international conference took place in Baden-Baden in 2010, called "European Health Resorts and Fashionable Spas of the 19th Century". A working group was established by the Mayors of 16 spa towns to carry out the proposed study. Seven countries (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom) got together at ministerial level to cooperate and established an International Steering Group (ISG) to guide the Mayors through this complex process. A further group of independent international experts was also appointed by the ISG to prepare a nomination dossier for submission to UNESCO. This project and the name of the series of spa towns became known as the Great Spas of Europe. Eventually the experts and the ISG recommended that 11 of the 16 spa towns were the best representative group to illustrate the outstanding universal value of the European spa phenomenon and a nomination was submitted to UNESCO in January 2019.
The Great Spa Towns of Europe was inscribed on the World Heritage List at the 44th World Heritage Committee meeting in Fuzhou, China. The name of the property was changed to the Great Spa Towns of Europe, previously the Great Spas of Europe.

On 24 July 2021, the Great Spas of Europe was officially inscribed on the World Heritage List

Olivier Touzeau, 19 September 2021

Flags of the Great Spa Towns of Europe network

During a meeting in Vichy, France of the mayors of the 11 towns in 2019, a white flag with the (textual) logo of the Great spas of Europe could be spotted: article in La Montagne.

White flags with the names of the towns, their logo in small at the top and the logo of the Great spas of Europe at the bottom have been created. They can for example be seen on the main bridge on river Allier in Vichy: article in La Montagne (2019), photo from this page (2019), photo (2023).

Olivier Touzeau, 19 September 2021

On the city hall of Spa (Belgium), the white flag with the name of the network in blue can be observed: photo (2023), photo (2024).
Same design as a table flag: photo (2024).

A variant flag, blue with the full logo, has been observed too in gathering of the members: photo (2025).

Olivier Touzeau, 2 June 2025