City Municipality of Vranjska Banja
Pčinja District, Region of Southern and Eastern Serbia
- Bearer
- City Municipality of Vranjska Banja
- Seat
- Vranjska Banja
- Adopted
- 2010
- First mention
- 1343
- Status of the insignia
- Non-heraldic emblem
- Grad
- City of Vranje
- District
- Pčinja District
- Region
- Region of Southern and Eastern Serbia
- Eparchy
- Eparchy of Vranje
- Official website
- vranjska-banja.rs
Blazon
Within a blue shield with a white and dark blue border is a green cartographic outline of the territory, from which a blue jet of thermal water springs. Around the map are white circles symbolising bubbles. In the lower part, on dark blue wavy lines, is a blue ribbon with the year 1343 written in yellow.
Symbolism and meaning
The official insignia of the City Municipality of Vranjska Banja are a composition which, through direct associations, points to the geographical position and natural wealth of the place. The central motif is a green area depicting the shape of the municipality's territory, while the blue jet with bubbles symbolises the thermal mineral springs for which the spa is renowned. The blue of the background represents the sky and purity, while at the bottom the year 1343 is displayed, marking the first written mention of the settlement in a charter of King Stefan Dušan.
Although the municipality uses this design as its official device, from a professional standpoint it is not a heraldic coat of arms but an emblem set in the form of a shield. This classification follows from the breach of several basic canons of heraldry:
- Cartography: The use of maps on a shield is a feature of socialist emblem design, whereas classical heraldry requires symbolic charges.
- Figures on the shield: Heraldry is a language of symbols; writing years and dates within the field of the shield is considered unheraldic. Information of this kind is placed only on the ribbon beneath the arms.
- Naturalism: The spring and bubbles are rendered in an illustrative, naturalistic manner rather than through heraldic stylisation (e.g. wavy bars).
- Visual recognisability: Placing green on a blue ground (colour on colour) reduces the contrast and the recognisability of the insignia at a distance, which is the basic function of a coat of arms.
This design is an example of pseudo-heraldry, in which the form of the shield is used merely as a frame for a graphic illustration rather than to display true heraldic values.
