Region of France
The arms of Île-de-France, three gold fleurs-de-lis on blue, are those of a region called France, the personal domain of the kings of France. They remain its best-known emblem, carried on a fleur-de-lis flag that has no official recognition as the flag of the region, while the regional council flies a white flag bearing its own logo, an eight-pointed star.
Flag
Not available
Coat of Arms
Not available
| Region | Île-de-France, region of France; prefecture Paris; inhabitants called Franciliens |
|---|---|
| Departments | Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, Essonne, Seine-et-Marne, Val-d’Oise, Yvelines |
| Arms | Azure, three fleurs-de-lis Or |
| Origin | The domain of the kings of France; the modern form of the arms of “France ancient”, semy of fleurs-de-lis |
| Flags | A blue flag with three fleurs-de-lis, without official recognition as the flag of the region; the white flag of the regional council with its logo |
| Logo | An eight-pointed star; in the logotype registered in 2005, its eight points stand for the eight departments |
The coat of arms of Île-de-France.
D’azur à trois fleurs de lys d’or.
That is: Azure, three fleurs-de-lis Or. According to French Wikipedia, the arms of Île-de-France, as a shield or as a banner of arms, are the traditional emblem that remains the best known, and they are used officially by the military region and by the gendarmerie legion of Île-de-France; its armorial of the regions adds that they were used in the past by the prefecture. They are the arms of a region called France, as place names such as Roissy-en-France show, because it was the personal domain of the kings of France.
The arms are the modern form of the arms called “France ancient”, d’azur semé de fleurs de lys, blue strewn with gold fleurs-de-lis, as shown by a twenty-franc postage stamp designed by Robert Louis and issued on 1 May 1943. According to French Wikipedia’s article on the arms of France, the three fleurs-de-lis began to compete with the semy from the last quarter of the 13th century, and the modern arms of France were adopted only in 1376, by order of Charles V, who meant to place the kingdom under the double invocation of the Virgin, the fleur-de-lis being a Marian symbol, and of the Trinity; the shield was then used without interruption until the abolition of the monarchy in 1792.
Fleurs-de-lis on blue appear in many arms of towns of Île-de-France, such as Saint-Denis, Montreuil, Puteaux, Cachan, Villepinte, Enghien-les-Bains and Juziers. Towns such as Paris whose arms bear three fleurs-de-lis on blue in the upper part were bonnes villes, the “good towns” of the kingdom. According to French Wikipedia, the old semy arms are used in the arms of the departments of the region.
The fleur-de-lis flag, given as the flag of Île-de-France by vexillological sources, without official recognition as the flag of the region.
Two flags are used to represent Île-de-France: the flag of the regional council, which takes up the council’s logo, and a flag recalling the region’s place in the old domain of the kings of France, which has no official recognition as the flag of the region.
A blue flag with three fleurs-de-lis is given as the flag of the Île-de-France region by vexillological sources. It is based on the arms of the kingdom of France and recalls that the region belonged to the old domain of the kings of France. It does not enjoy “official” recognition as the flag of the region, but in 2010 the Monnaie de Paris issued a 10-euro coin bearing a flag with three fleurs-de-lis to represent the region in its series of regional euros.
The regional council of Île-de-France flies a white flag bearing its logo on most of the façades of the region’s lycées, its secondary schools; at the lycées Carnot and Montaigne in Paris and Marie-Curie in Sceaux, for example, it flies alongside the national and European flags. French Wikipedia’s article on the flag dates it to 10 October 2005, the day the council registered its logotype with the INPI, the French industrial property office: an eight-pointed star in red-orange next to the name of the region in lower-case letters, and, according to the description of the registered logotype, “the eight points of the star symbolise the eight departments of Île-de-France”. The red-orange colour and the shape of the logo were controversial, and for Alfred Znamierowski a logo does not necessarily make a good flag.
According to French Wikipedia’s article on the region, the regional council gave itself a visual identity distinct from the traditional arms. The first logo, from 1976, is described as a stylised rose in blue, white and red: its four outer blue petals stood for the four departments of the outer ring (Essonne, Seine-et-Marne, Val-d’Oise and Yvelines), its three inner white petals for those of the inner ring (Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne), and its red bud for Paris. In 2000 the advertising agency Ailleurs exactement designed an eight-pointed star in a blue swirl, the eight points for the eight departments; a new logotype was registered in 2005, and the logo was changed again in 2014 and in 2019. According to the article on the flag, the colours of the sash worn by the regional councillors are those of the 1976 logo.
Île-de-France, whose prefecture is Paris, is made up of eight departments: Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, Essonne, Seine-et-Marne, Val-d’Oise and Yvelines. During the parliamentary debate on the creation of the region in 1976, the name “Île-de-France” won out, with the support of the senator-mayor of Versailles André Mignot, over “région parisienne”, promoted by the deputies of Paris. Its inhabitants are called Franciliens, a name proposed in 1985 by Michel Giraud, a former president of the region, and adopted by the Académie française in 1986.
The name itself is first attested only in 1387, in the Chroniques of Jean Froissart, and two main explanations are put forward: one refers to the land lying between several rivers, as Michel Giraud proposed with the Seine, the Oise, the Aisne, the Marne and the Ourcq; the other sees in it an alteration of the Frankish Liddle Franke, “little France”. About thirty communes are still called “en France”, such as Puiseux-en-France, Bonneuil-en-France, Tremblay-en-France and Roissy-en-France.
Its arms, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or, are those of a region called France, as place names such as Roissy-en-France show, because it was the personal domain of the kings of France.
The arms are the modern form of “France ancient”, strewn with fleurs-de-lis; according to French Wikipedia’s article on the arms of France, the modern arms with three fleurs-de-lis were adopted in 1376 by order of Charles V.
The regional council flies a white flag bearing its logo, while the blue flag with three fleurs-de-lis, given as the flag of the region by vexillological sources, has no official recognition as the flag of the region.
Its eight points stand for the eight departments of Île-de-France, according to the description of the logotype registered by the regional council in 2005.
It is first attested in 1387, in the Chroniques of Jean Froissart; one explanation refers to the land between several rivers, another to the Frankish Liddle Franke, “little France”.
Last reviewed by the Emblema Mundi editorial team on 28 October 2026.