Last modified: 2024-11-02 by olivier touzeau
Keywords: belfort | territoire de belfort |
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![[Flag]](../images/f/fr-90.gif)
Flag of Territoire de Belfort - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 26 October 2024
See also:
Code: 90
Region: Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (Franche-Comté until 2014)
Traditional province: Alsace
Bordering departments: Doubs,
Jura, Haut-Rhin,
Haute-Saône,
Vosges
Bordering country: Switzerland (Canton
of Jura)
Area: 609 km2
Population (2017): 142,622 inhabitants
Préfecture: Belfort
Subdivisions: 1 arrondissement, 9 cantons, 102 municipalities.
Territoire de Belfort is made of the part of the department of Haut-Rhin that remained French after the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany in 1871, as a reward to the heroic resistance (103 days) of the town's defenders commanded by colonel Denfert-Rochereau. The area had the status of "special territory" until eventually granted the status of department in 1922.
Ivan Sache, 14 November 2009
The departmental council of Territoire de Belfort adopted a new logo in April 2023 [source: official website].
According to the graphic charter, the new logo transcribes different
elements that make up the identity of the department. It takes up the
figure of the lion of Auguste Bartholdi, eternal watchman and guardian
of the city, as well as the Miotte tower and the lines of the coat of
arms.
This new identity aims to “modernize the image of our community and
breathe new life into the influence of the Territoire de Belfort"[source: Est Républicain].
A white flag with the new logo is in use: photo (2023), photo (2024).
Olivier Touzeau, 26 October 2024
Former flags of the Departmental and General Councils - Images by Olivier Touzeau, 18 May 2019 and Ivan Sache, 29 October 2009
The flag of the former General Council of Territory of Belfort was white with
the Council's logo.
The logo, adopte on 15 November 2005, is made of a stylized lion with a carmine mane and an olive yellow face, flanked on its right by the writing "Territoire de Belfort" (carmine) / "Conseil
général" (olive yellow), in italics. The "C" of "Conseil" is made of
the mouth of the lion.
The lion represents the Lion of Belfort, designed by the sculptor
Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904), mostly famous for the design
of the Statue of Liberty in New York.
To celebrate the heroic defenders of the town during the siege by the
Prussians (3 November 1870 - 18 February 1871), the municipality of
Belfort commissioned Bartholdi, who proposed to append a huge lion to
the wall of the citadel dominating the town. The rumor spread quickly
to the town, so that the lion became the emblem of the town even
before having been sculpted. Poems and songs were dedicated to the
lion, and a national, patriotic fund created to pay the sculpture was
equally successful with the Republicans and the Monarchists.
Recent research by the Curator of the Bartholdi Museum in Colmar has
shown that the lion was not created from scratch; Bartholdi indeed
reused elements of a project of monument to Marshal Moncey, one of the
defenders of Paris in 1814. From the project that aborted in 1864,
Bartholdi reused a scale model featuring a roaring lion raising a
forepaw. Progressively, Bartholdi "tamed" the lion, portrayed as
"driven back but terrible in its furor", but much less aggressive than
in the early sketches.
Bartholdi studied lions at the Jardin des Plantes of Paris; an
unsubtantiated tradition claims that his preferred model was the
famous Brutus owned by the lion tamer Baptiste Pezon. In September
1875, the sculptor achieved the scale drawings of what he called his
"baby" or his "monster". The erection of the lion started in spring
1876.
Achieved in summer 1880, the statue was never officially inaugurated;
the French government pressured the municipality of Belfort to cancel
any official ceremony that could be perceived as a provocation and a
call to revenge by the Germans. Bartholdi inaugurated himself his
monument with bonfires. Three weeks later, the bronze replica of the
statue, in reduced size, placed on Place Denfert-Rochereau (named for the Colonel who commanded the defenders of Belfort), was inaugurated with a small bonfire and a silent military parade.
As stated by the sculptor in a letter to his mother, dated 3 September
1875, Bartholdi did not want his lion to be "annexated" by the
partisans of the revenge against Germany. However, Place Denfert-
Rochereau was in the 1880-1890s a main place of rallying for the
French nationalists.
[Bartholdi, cet inconnu célèbre by
Robert Belot, Université de technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard]
The colors are prescribed as (Graphic Charter):
![[Flag]](../images/f/fr-90-d1.gif)
![[Flag]](../images/f/fr-90-cg.gif)
Red Beige
Pantone 200c 465c
CMYK 20 100 70 0 30 30 60 20
Web A9 1E 3E 9F 92 68
RAL 3002 Carmine red 1020 Olive yellow
Ivan Sache, 18 May 2019
In 2015, General Councils were renamed to Departmental Councils. Accordingly the words "Conseil général" were replaced by the words "Le Département” (photo).
Olivier Touzeau, 18 May 2019
Former flag of the General Council
![[Flag]](../images/f/fr-90-c1.gif)
Former flag of the General Council of Territoire de Belfort - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 18 May 2019
The former flag of the General Council was white with the Council's former logo.
Olivier Touzeau, 18 May 2019