City of Novi Sad

South Bačka District, Region of Vojvodina

Bearer

City of Novi Sad

Adopted

1748 (grant of arms)

Decision

Statute of the City of Novi Sad, Article 7 (published in the official gazette of the City on 22 October 2008)

District

Region

Eparchy

Official website

The City of Novi Sad uses a coat of arms and a flag. The arms date from 1748, when Maria Theresa granted the place the status of a free royal city and the name Neoplanta. The flag is prescribed by Article 7 of the city Statute, published on 22 October 2008: light blue, with the arms in white in the centre. The city's regulations call the arms the “symbol of the City”, and leave their appearance and use to a separate decision of the City Assembly. Between 1981 and 2016 an altered version of the arms was used, and the present arms have silver towers and a silver wavy bar on green.

Blazon

Shield

A Baroque shield; in the upper, blue field three separate silver towers of rough-hewn stone, with cornices around the middle and a crenellated cornice at the top, closed doors and open windows, the middle tower being somewhat taller and wider, and above it flies a white dove with an olive sprig. In the lower, green field a silver wavy bar.

Flag

A light blue flag with the arms in white in the centre; the proportion is not uniform, and the arms are also shown in full colours, on a blue or white field. A square and a vertical variant (usually about 3:1) are also in use, as is a flag with the arms shifted towards the lance, the dove and the inscription “Град Нови Сад”.

Earlier insignia

1748.Grant of arms

The arms of the Free Royal City of Neoplanta did not distinguish silver from white: the towers, dove and river are shown in white.

1941–1944 (?)Possible earlier flag

According to a Hungarian book on the names, arms and flags of towns (Széll), the flag of Novi Sad had seven unequal blue and white vertical stripes. It has not been reliably established whether this was a proposal or a flag that was actually used, probably chiefly in the years of the Hungarian occupation.

1981–2016Earlier version of the arms

The towers were light grey, and the river was shown as a white bar with narrow blue stripes. The towers were often wrongly coloured gold, and the fourfold red and white frame around the shield, though never officially prescribed, was almost always present, especially on flags.