The Liechtenstein coat of arms, quarter by quarter

The first odd thing about Liechtenstein’s coat of arms is that it says nothing about Liechtenstein. No Rhine, no mountain, no Vaduz. Instead you get Silesian eagles, a hunting horn from a long-gone duchy and a tribute to a 17th-century prince’s wife. It’s a family’s coat of arms, and the country uses it because for centuries the country belonged to that family. Once that clicks, half of Liechtenstein makes sense.

A family shield that became the state’s

The constitution is blunt about it in Article 5, where it says the state’s arms are those of the princely house of Liechtenstein. The Historisches Lexikon adds that this has been written into the constitution since 1921, but that in practice it goes back much further. After the purchases of Schellenberg (1699) and Vaduz (1712), the family’s arms stood for the territory as well, and the house dates them as the great state arms from 1719, when the principality was created. If that leap from private estate to country interests you, it’s all in my history of Liechtenstein.

The core is very old. The family shield, divided gold over red, is recorded from the 13th century, and the oldest known colour version dates from 1409, in the register of a confraternity at the Arlberg pass. When the Liechtenstein brothers became princes from 1608 onwards, they wanted arms to match their new rank. The version you see today was created by Prince Gundaker, raised to princely rank in 1623.

How to read it, emblem by emblem

The great arms are divided into four quarters, with a pointed base at the bottom and a small shield in the middle. That centre is the family’s gold and red. Around it, each emblem recalls a possession or a title.

The first quarter shows a crowned black eagle on gold, with a silver crescent and a cross on its breast, for Silesia. The second, with bars of gold and black and a green crown of lozenges running across them, is the Kuenrings’. The third, divided red and silver, stands for the Duchy of Troppau. The fourth is my favourite, a crowned black eagle with a woman’s head, which the princely house says commemorates Agnes of East Frisia, Gundaker’s first wife. Below, in the blue base, a gold hunting horn hangs from a cord, and that’s the Duchy of Jägerndorf.

None of those places is in Liechtenstein, and that’s the point. The Historisches Lexikon explains that the quarters refer to the prince’s possessions and his most prestigious claims to title in central Europe. In other words, the arms work as the family’s calling card before the Holy Roman Empire, not as a portrait of the Rhine valley.

Around it all sits a purple mantle with an ermine lining and, above, the princely crown, the same crown that the Liechtenstein flag has carried on its blue stripe since 1937. The third symbol of the state, the Liechtenstein national anthem, has a story every bit as odd.

Great arms or lesser arms?

Liechtenstein uses two versions. The great arms are the ones I’ve just described, with all six emblems. The lesser arms are far simpler, just the family’s gold-and-red shield with the same crown on top.

Who may use them is set out in the Wappengesetz of 1982. Members of the princely house and the state authorities can, while a private individual needs the government’s permission. So if you spot the arms on a product, there’s normally a permit behind it. Today’s family and the rules of succession are covered on the princely house of Liechtenstein page.

The municipalities’ arms

As well as the national arms, each of the eleven municipalities has its own, received from the prince in the quarter-century up to 1958, along with a flag and colours. Those of Vaduz, approved on 26 July 1978, combine the prince’s hat in red with a silvery church banner that comes from the counts of Werdenberg-Sargans. The capital itself is covered in my guide to Vaduz.

Where to see it, and how to take it home

The arms appear on official documents and on stamps, such as a 1968 issue showing the arms of Franz Joseph II and Princess Gina. To me a stamp is the most honest souvenir you can buy, because it’s an official object rather than a copy made for tourists. The Liechtenstein Center, the tourist office in the middle of Vaduz, sells postage stamps, and the country’s long relationship with philately is on my page about Liechtenstein stamps.