Malmö Flag

The flag of Malmö, Sweden, is a heraldic banner featuring a white field charged with a red griffin's head wearing a golden crown. The design comes straight from the city's coat of arms, one of the oldest in Scandinavia, making the flag a direct representation of Malmö's official heraldry.

The griffin's head is shown in profile facing the hoist, its red plumage and gold crown standing out sharply against the white field. The composition is clean and emblematic, typical of Scandinavian civic flags that favor a single strong heraldic symbol over complex patterns.

The crowned red griffin's head is the ancient arms of Malmö, granted in 1437 by King Eric of Pomerania, who took it from his own family emblem, the griffin of the House of Pomerania. The griffin, a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle, traditionally stands for vigilance, courage and strength.

The white field (argent) emphasizes the charge, and the golden crown marks the royal grant. The griffin connects Malmö to a wider heraldic family: the neighboring province of Scania flies a golden griffin on red, and several Pomeranian cities across the Baltic use griffins of their own.

Malmö's griffin head was granted on April 23, 1437, when King Eric of Pomerania, ruler of the Kalmar Union, gave the city the right to bear the crowned griffin's head from his family arms. It is one of the oldest documented city arms in the Nordic countries.

The arms, and the banner derived from them, remained in use through Malmö's Danish centuries and after the city passed to Sweden in 1658. The current official rendering was registered with the Swedish Patent and Registration Office in 1977, standardizing the design used on the city's flag today.