Region of France
The coat of arms of Alsace unites the arms of the two landgraviates, Upper Alsace, a gold bend between six crowns, and Lower Alsace, a silver bend between flory cotises. It exists in two versions, side by side as approved by the prefects in 1948, or superposed. Alsace has two flags, neither of which has official status according to French Wikipedia: the flag of the arms and the red and white Rot un Wiss.
Coat of Arms
Not available
| Region | Alsace, French administrative region until 2015, merged into Grand Est |
|---|---|
| Since 2021 | European Collectivity of Alsace, formed by merging the departments of Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin |
| Arms | The arms of Upper Alsace and Lower Alsace combined, side by side (1948) or superposed |
| Approved | 5 May 1948, by the prefects of Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin |
| Flags | The flag of the arms and the Rot un Wiss, neither with official status according to French Wikipedia (English Wikipedia calls the flag of the arms official) |
| Number plates | The arms from 2009 to 2020, the “A cœur” logo since 2021 |
The coat of arms of Alsace in its superposed version, the one used by the Alsace region.
De gueules à la bande d’argent accompagnée de cotices fleuronnées du même, accompagnée de six couronnes d’or posées en bande trois et trois, les inférieures inversées.
That is: Gules, a bend Argent cotised flory of the same, between six crowns Or set bendwise three and three, the lower ones reversed. The arms of Alsace unite those of Upper Alsace and Lower Alsace, either superposed, as in this blazon, or side by side.
The arms of Upper Alsace are based on those of the landgraviate of Upper Alsace: de gueules à la bande d’or accompagnée de six couronnes du même, trois en chef et trois renversées en pointe, a gold bend between six gold crowns on red. The landgraviate became the property of the Habsburgs around 1120, and its arms first appear on the equestrian seal of Duke Ernst I of Austria in 1418; their colours are those of the Habsburg arms reversed. The three lower crowns are first shown reversed on a secret seal of Maximilian I of 1512. The origin of the crowns is obscure: the chronicler Schoepflin could not give a satisfactory explanation of them.
The arms of Lower Alsace, de gueules à la bande d’argent accompagnée de cotices fleuronnées du même, a silver bend between flory cotises on red, have a family origin: they are the arms of the counts of Werd, who received the landgraviate in fief in 1175. Their oldest known representation is on a seal of 1262, and an English roll of arms, probably going back to a source of 1280, gives their colours. After the Werd family died out, the title of landgrave of Lower Alsace passed in 1384 to the bishop of Strasbourg, and the cardinals de Rohan bore the arms until the French Revolution.
According to French Wikipedia, the first known combination of the two arms appears in the Wappenbüchlein of Virgil Solis in 1555, though the combination is found in the Armorial de l’Europe et de la Toison d’or in the mid-15th century; apart from the particular case of Archduke Leopold V of Austria-Tyrol, both bishop of Strasbourg and landgrave of Upper Alsace, it did not correspond to any political entity. After the treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which annexed much of Alsace to France, the landgraviates were abolished, and the royal commission drawing up the armorial of the généralité of Alsace chose for the province the arms of the Holy Roman Empire, a black double-headed eagle on gold. In December 1891 an imperial decree gave the Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine arms bearing the arms of Upper and Lower Alsace beside those of ducal Lorraine. After the First World War the French government took no decision. On 5 May 1948 the prefects of Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin approved arms proposed by the heraldist Robert Louis and the archivist Jacques Meurgey de Tupigny: Lower Alsace, turned to face the other way by heraldic courtesy, beside Upper Alsace. This is the version used by the Gendarmerie nationale. In 1994 the region sent out New Year cards with a composition by the heraldist André Herscher in which the two arms are superposed rather than side by side; it was this version that appeared on number plates from 2009 to 2020.
According to French Wikipedia, Alsace has two flags, neither of which has official status.
The flag of the arms, also called the “administrative” flag, exists in both versions of the arms, side by side and superposed. It appeared in the 1970s and 1980s with decentralisation and the creation of the Alsace region, when some local authorities chose it to avoid the Rot un Wiss, then considered a protest flag. It is used unofficially by the region, the European Collectivity of Alsace, communes and some administrations. English Wikipedia, on the other hand, calls the side-by-side version the official flag of Alsace from 1949 to 2008 and the superposed version the official flag since 2008.
Rot un Wiss means “red and white” in Alsatian, the traditional colours of several Alsatian towns, among them Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Ensisheim, Guebwiller, Sélestat, Munster and Wissembourg. According to French Wikipedia the flag appeared in the early 1870s, when Alsace was attached to the German Empire by the treaty of Frankfurt and part of the population, especially in Strasbourg, refused to hang out the imperial colours; the horizontal form with red at the top gradually became the most usual. English Wikipedia instead traces it to the red and white banner of Gérard, Duke of Lorraine, in the 11th century. Between the two World Wars it was opposed by the French government, it was totally banned during the annexation by Nazi Germany, and after the Liberation it was seen as seditious; on 19 June 1968 regionalist activists raised it on top of Strasbourg cathedral. On 25 June 1912 the Landtag of Alsace-Lorraine had unanimously adopted a flag for Alsace-Lorraine, a variant of the Rot un Wiss: red and white with a yellow cross of Lorraine, which Wilhelm II never ratified. In a CSA poll of April 2017, 67 % of Alsatians wanted the Rot un Wiss to become the official flag of Alsace.
The regional council of Alsace chose not to use the arms as its logo, and in 2012 it created the Alsace brand, whose logo, called “A cœur”, is a red “A” shaped like a pretzel or a heart. In 2015 Alsace lost its status as an administrative region and merged with Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne into Grand Est; in 2021 it became a territorial collectivity again, the European Collectivity of Alsace, formed by merging the departments of Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin, whose logo combines the “A cœur” with elements of the European flag. In a public consultation in autumn 2020 on the territorial identifier of number plates, the “A cœur” won 43.45 % of the votes, the flag of the arms 36.59 % and the Rot un Wiss 19.96 %; the “A cœur” has replaced the arms on number plates since 1 January 2021. The Rot un Wiss is absent from the plenary sessions of the European Collectivity of Alsace in Colmar, but present in the meeting room of its headquarters in Strasbourg and in its president’s office.
It unites the arms of the two landgraviates: Upper Alsace, a gold bend between six gold crowns on red, and Lower Alsace, a silver bend between flory cotises on red, the arms of the counts of Werd.
The version approved by the prefects of Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin on 5 May 1948 sets the two arms side by side; the version composed by the heraldist André Herscher, sent out by the region in 1994, superposes them, and was used on number plates from 2009 to 2020.
Their origin is obscure: according to French Wikipedia, the chronicler Schoepflin could not give a satisfactory explanation of them. They come from the arms of the landgraviate of Upper Alsace, first seen on a seal of 1418.
A red and white flag, in the traditional colours of Strasbourg and many Alsatian towns, which according to French Wikipedia appeared in the early 1870s when Alsace was attached to the German Empire. It has no official status, but in an April 2017 poll 67 % of Alsatians wanted it to become the official flag.
According to French Wikipedia, neither the flag of the arms nor the Rot un Wiss has official status; the flag of the arms is used unofficially by several local authorities. English Wikipedia describes the flag of the arms as the official flag of Alsace.
Last reviewed by the Emblema Mundi editorial team on 25 October 2026.