15 Coats of Arms with a Strong Meaning Behind the Unusual Appearance

Not only do countries have their own coats of arms, so do very small municipalities. Many coats of arms appeared several centuries ago and have a very interesting history. However, the fact that they haven’t changed over the centuries can end up making their appearance strange for a 21st century person.

At the awesome.club we love history and humor. This time we decided to combine one and the other and compiled the weirdest city shields. Although they look like fun, they have the same cultural value as real monuments.

Prochowice is a small town with a population of approximately 4,000 people. It has few tourist attractions, but for those who can read coats of arms and enjoy hunting and fishing, this place will look very interesting. The mutated hare with a fish tail does not mean the terrible mutations of the local animals, but that the region is rich in fish and animals.

The city’s coat of arms features an ostrich with a horseshoe. By the way, this bird is often found on the shields of European cities. In the Middle Ages, people believed that an ostrich could digest any object, such as stones, nails, arrowheads and more. This (erroneous) opinion was so widespread in society that the ostrich was directly associated with iron processing. His image was often used on the coats of arms of cities dedicated to mining.

The emblem of the City of Londonderry was adopted in the 17th century. The pensive skeleton in the center symbolizes a true historical character. This is the Anglo-Irish tycoon Liat de Burg. His fate was tragic: he was imprisoned by his own brother and ended up starving to death. The inscription under the emblem in Latin means “life, truth, victory”.

In the official coat of arms of the region of Sicily appears the triskelion symbol (or triskelion), created by the ancient Greeks who arrived on the island with the expedition in the eighth century BC and discovered that it had three points – what the three legs symbolize. Previously, in the center of the shield there was the head of Medusa with snakes instead of hair. Now, in its place appears the head of a goddess with ears of wheat as symbols of the fertile lands of the island.

Veliky Ustyug is the birthplace of Russian Santa Claus, who could appear on the coat of arms. In its place appears a half-naked man with two pitchers. This coat of arms was approved by Queen Catherine II and symbolizes the excellent location: the jugs are the rivers Yug and Sukhona, and the city is on their banks, where their confluence forms the river Duina of the North. And man is the god Neptune, in ancient Roman mythology the god of rivers and spring waters.

This coat of arms is easy to decipher: a dinosaur in the center reminds us that bones of these prehistoric reptiles have been found in this area. By the way, in 2010, scientists found those of a species still unknown to science. Maybe that’s why the animal’s body is covered with hair instead of scales. The white lines symbolize the confluence of three rivers.

Extinct animals appear on the coats of arms of different cities around the world. The symbol of this Spanish municipality is the trilobite, an ancient arthropod that lived in the Paleozoic era. Trilobites were first found in Murero, so it turned out that in this area there were many well-preserved fossils of them. That’s why the official coat of arms adopted one of them.

The coat of arms of the French city of Nimes dates back to Roman times. A crocodile chained to a palm tree is a symbol of the conquest of ancient Egypt. This image was engraved on coins, but in the Middle Ages it was almost completely forgotten. At different times, on the coat of arms of the city you could see a red shield and a golden bull, but at the beginning of the 15th century a coin with a crocodile was found. The king allowed it to be placed on the coat of arms, where it remains to this day.

There are varying opinions about the man on the Lapland coat of arms. This is probably one of the Saami, indigenous people of northern Europe and, in particular, Lapland. ‘Savages’ are quite common on medieval coats of arms in northern Europe. Before, they were called “people of the forest”, with no negative connotation, but simply indicating that they belonged to a certain territory.

The coat of arms of this Austrian commune features a cross between a lion and a man. The plot of the emblem is quite common, however it is difficult to explain why the figure of the man is black. According to one version, the coat of arms represents Saint Mauritius, the patron saint of the Roman Empire. He lived in the capital of ancient Egypt, which is why in several paintings he is depicted with dark skin.

The skier on Lillehammer’s coat of arms isn’t just a reminder that there’s plenty of snow in the city. This is an image of one of the medieval warriors, called by the Norwegians “birch legs”. It was placed on the coat of arms in the 13th century, after several skier warriors managed to save the two-year-old son of the king of neighboring Trondheim. These soldiers were called “birch legs” because they wore boots laced with birch trunk bark.

This is perhaps one of the most minimalist coats of arms in the world. What you see is not a brick, as it might seem, but a bar of soap. In the 17th century, the first soap factory appeared in Shuya, and almost 100 years later a bar was placed on the city’s official coat of arms.

The figure of a woodcutter-beaver indicates almost all important data about this small Finnish town. First, that it is located in an area rich in rivers and lakes. And, apparently, also in beavers that inhabit the reservoirs. The ax on the rodent’s shoulder portrays the type of activity of the local residents: for a long time, the river was used for river transportation of wood. Working animals often appear on the coats of arms of industrial cities.

Nowogrodziec’s emblem dates back to the Middle Ages. In the 15th century, this municipality belonged to the family of Lord von Rohenberg and the image of a black sheep appeared on the shields of the Lord’s soldiers. The tower probably symbolizes the city, while the goat and shield images represent its defence. Currently, of course, Nowogrodziec has no owners, but the coat of arms has remained unchanged.

It’s a small town close to Paris. In the Middle Ages, it became the rural residence of French kings. Monarchs spent a lot of time in this city and built a huge palace. It was in the palace of Saint-Germain that Louis XIV was born. In honor of the event, a cradle was placed on the coat of arms of the city. The figures under the cradle are the date of birth of the French king.

Any coat of arms is not just a funny picture. He is the guardian of the history of the municipality he symbolizes. Do you know what your city’s coat of arms looks like and what it means?