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Sveio, Hordaland (Norway)

image by Tomislav Šipek, 03 February 2016
Approved on 19 February 1982.

About the flag
Coat of Arms

See also:

About the flag

Sveio municipality is situated in Hordaland county.

The arms and flag of Sveio are based on the arms of a local family dating back as far as 1591. In more recent years, descendants of these families have taken up these arms, a cloven lily with a six-pointed star in the middle. The municipality chose the cloven lily only. The heraldist Kolbjørn Ekkje aided in the adoption of this motive, and he was also responsible for making the design (see [ekk82]). Official approval was granted 19 February 1982. The proportions are set to 5:7 by municipal regulations.
Jan Oskar Engene, 29 June 2002

Source: The text and image are based on research Engene did for an article published in the German vexillological journal Der Flaggenkurier, No. 2, 1996 [joe96]. Consult this article for detailed references to sources.

Here is flag and coat of arms of Sveio.
Source: https://lovdata.no/dokument/OV/forskrift/1982-02-19-422?q=flagg
Tomislav Šipek, 03 February 2016

Coat of Arms

image by Tomislav Šipek, 03 February 2016

Official blazon in Norwegian: "På raud grunn ei kløyvd kvit lilje."
Blazoned in English: "Gules a fleur de lis cloven argent."
English blazon by Željko Heimer, 5 August 2002

Blazon: På raud grunn ei kløyvd sølv lilje.
In English: Gules a flue-de-lys cleft or.
Apprvoed by the royal resolution 19 Feburary 1982 after a drawing by Kolbjørn Ekkje. [c2j87]
The design was inspired by the arms of the family of Jon Gauteson from Sveio, who lived around 1500. His sons Mats and Erik were granted Norwegian nobility by Christin IV in 1591. They used a cleft fleur-de-lis with a mullet inbetween in the chief. The design went into disuse eventually, but as [c2j87] recorded, the Erik's successors in modern age took of using it again. Therefore the municipality took a different design, removing the star.
Željko Heimer, 06 February 2016

"Gules a fleur-de-lys cleft argent"? (And here I was wondering how the cleft could have its own colour.)
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 06 February 2016