Flags and arms of cantons of Switzerland

Each of the 26 modern cantons of Switzerland has an official flag and a coat of arms.
The history of development of these designs spans the 13th to the 20th centuries.

List

The cantons are listed in their order of precedence given in the federal constitution. This reflects the historical order of precedence of the Eight Cantons in the 15th century, followed by the remaining cantons in the order of their historical accession to the confederacy.
Standesfarben were used to identify the cantons when the full banner was not available for display, although there is overlap; Unterwalden and Solothurn share the same colours, as do Basel and Appenzell, and with the accession of the modern cantons, Valais and Basel-City, and St. Gallen and Thurgau.

Nr.	Name	COA	Flag	Colours	Blazon	Date	Capital
1	Zurich				Per bend argent and azure	13th c.	Zürich
2	Bern				Gules, on a bend or a bear passant sable armed, langued, and pizzled of the field	13th c.	Bern
3	Lucerne				Per pale azure and argent	14th c.	Lucerne
4	Uri				Or, a bull's head cabossed sable langued and nose-ringed gules	13th c.	Altdorf
5	Schwyz				Gules, in sinister chief a cross couped argent	13th c.; 17th c.	Schwyz
6a	Obwalden				Per fess gules and argent, a key paleways counterchanged	13th c. ; 17th c.	Sarnen
6b	Nidwalden				Gules, a key paleways with two shafts argent	13th c. ; 17th c.	Stans
7	Glarus				Gules, a pilgrim walking towards the dexter argent, habited sable, holding in his dexter hand a staff, in his sinister hand a bible, and about his head a halo, all or	14th c.	Glarus
8	Zug				Argent, a fess azure	1319	Zug
9	Fribourg				Per fess sable and argent	1470s ; 1830	Fribourg
10	Solothurn				Per fess gules and argent	1443	Solothurn
11a	Basel-Stadt				Argent, a crosier paleways sable	13th c.	Basel
11b	Basel-Landschaft				Argent, a crosier with seven crockets paleways to sinister gules	1834	Liestal
12	Schaffhausen				Or, a ram salient sable horned, crowned, unguled, and pizzled of the field, and langued gules	1218	Schaffhausen
13a	Appenzell Innerrhoden				Argent, a bear rampant sable armed, langued, and pizzled gules	15th c.	Appenzell
13b	Appenzell Ausserrhoden				Argent, a bear rampant sable armed, langued, and pizzled gules, between the letters V and R sable	15th c. ; 17th c.	Herisau Trogen
14	St. Gallen				Vert, a fasces paleways argent banded of the field	1803	St. Gallen
15	Grisons				Per fess and in chief per pale: first per pale sable and argent; second quarterly azure and or, a cross counterchanged; third argent, an ibex rampant sable langued and pizzled gules	15th c. ; 1933	Chur
16	Aargau				Per pale, the first sable, three bars wavy argent; the second azure, three stars argent	1803	Aarau
17	Thurgau				Per bend argent and vert, two lions passant bendways or langued and pizzled gules	1803	Frauenfeld
18	Ticino				Per pale gules and azure	1803	Bellinzona
19	Vaud				Per fess argent and vert, in chief the words 'Liberté et Patrie' or	1803	Lausanne
20	Valais				Per pale argent and gules, thirteen stars counterchanged	1571; 1815	Sion
21	Neuchâtel				Per pale vert and gules, a pale and in sinister chief a cross couped, both argent	1857	Neuchâtel
22	Geneva				Per pale: first or, an eagle with two heads dimidiated per pale sable crowned, armed, and beaked gules; second gules, a key paleways or	15th c.	Geneva
23	Jura				Per pale: first argent, a crosier gules; second gules, three bars argent	1979	Delémont
	Swiss Confederation				Gules, a Cross couped Argent	14th c. ; 1815

Heraldic charges

Of the 26 cantons since 1999 :

six flags are simple bicolor designs, per fess , per bend or with a central fess. The coats of arms of Ticino and Lucerne have the peculiarity that they are per pale even though the flags are per fess.
eight flags with heraldic animals:
*the bear for Bern and for Appenzell
*the bull for Uri
*the ram for Schaffhausen
*the ibex for Graubünden
*the eagle for Geneva
*two lions for Thurgau
three with the bishop's crozier or Baselstab, for Basel and Jura
three with a key, for Unterwalden and for Geneva
two cantons show the Swiss cross, for Schwyz on solid red, and for Neuchâtel in the corner of the "revolutionary" tricolour
two with stars, Valais and Aargau, the latter with additional wavy lines representing rivers
two with letters for Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Vaud.
the image of a pilgrim for Glarus
the fasces for St. Gallen

Distinctively, Swiss cantons use square flags.

History

Historically, the number of cantons was:

eight from 1352 to 1481, see Eight Cantons
thirteen from 1513 to 1798, see Thirteen Cantons
twenty during the time of the Helvetic Republic, from 1798 to 1803, without official flags or coats of arms
twenty-two from 1848 to 1978, including three cantons divided into two half-cantons each
twenty-three from 1979 to 1999, due to the secession of the canton of Jura from Bern.

Nidwalden and Obwalden form traditional subdivisions of Unterwalden. Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft, as well as Appenzell Inner- and Ausserrhoden, are half cantons, resulting from the division of Basel and Appenzell, respectively.
The Swiss Federal Constitution of 1999 abandoned the use of the term "half-canton" as an official designation, so that the official number of cantons became 26 - the former half-cantons being now referred to as "cantons with half a cantonal vote" officially, even though they are still commonly referred to as "half-cantons".
With the exception of Lucerne, Schwyz and Ticino, the cantonal flags are simply transposed versions of the cantonal coats of arms. In case of Lucerne and Ticino, whose flags consist of fields of different colours divided per fess, the coats of arms are of the same colours divided per pale. The coat of arms of Schwyz has the cross moved from the canton to the sinister canton with respect to the flag.
The coats of arms of the Thirteen Cantons are based on medieval signs, originating as war flags and as emblems used on seals.
For war flags, a distinction was made between Banner and Fähnlein, the former was the large war flag used only in the case of a full levy of cantonal troops for a major operation. The latter was a smaller flag used for minor military expeditions. The Banner was considered a sacred possession, usually kept in a church. Losing the banner to an enemy force was a great shame and invited mockery from other cantons.
Pope Julius II in recognition of the support he received from Swiss mercenaries against France
in 1512 granted the Swiss the title of Ecclesiasticae libertatis defensores and gave them two large banners, besides a blessed sword and hat. Papal legate Matthias Schiner in addition gave to the Swiss cantons and their associates a total of 42 costly silk banners with
augmentations, the so-called Juliusbanner.
Some of these banners survive, of the cantonal ones notably those of Zürich and Solothurn.
The fashion of arranging cantonal insignia in shields as coats of arms arises in the late 15th century.
The Tagsatzung in Baden was presented with stained glass representations of all cantons.
In these designs, two cantonal escutcheons were shown side by side, below a shield bearing the Imperial Eagle and a crown, flanked by two banner-bearers.
Based on these, there arose a tradition of representing cantonal arms in stained glass, alive throughout the early modern period and continued in the modern state.

Zürich

The flag of Zürich is derived from a blue-and-white design attested since the 1220s, the diagonal division of the flag is first attested 1389.
The flag of Zürich was adorned by a red Schwenkel since 1273. This was regarded as a mark of sovereignty and honour by the people of Zürich, but the Schwenkel was otherwise used as a mark of "shame", identifying replacement flags used after a real flag was captured by an enemy
This led to a misunderstanding after the Battle of Nancy, when the Duke of Lorraine removed the Schwenkel from the Zürich flag, stating that with the present victory, Zürich had "erased its shame". The perplexed Zürich troops later quietly re-attached the Schwenkel.
Zürich attached the Swiss cross in the red Schwenkel rather than in the main flag, and this may have contributed to the development of the flag of Switzerland.