Erik Rudolfsson from the town of Östhammar, 130 km north of Stockholm, has designed a blue, white and yellow Nordic Cross flag for the Swedish region of Roslagen.
Erik Rudolfsson’s Roslagen flag was made public in the summer of 2020. Swedish Radio P4 told the story on 10 July: “Here is the new flag for Roslagen”.
Roslagen is the coastal region of Uppland, the province north of the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The main town in Roslagen (outside of the Stockholm metropolitan area) is Norrtälje with 20,000 inhabitants. The borders of Roslagen is not clearly defined.
Historically, Roslagen is closely connected to Sweden’s Viking history. The region’s name alludes to ships being rowed; it combines the old place name Roden (related to the word rowing) and skeppslag meaning ship’s crew. Uppland was the centre of the old Swedish kingdom in pre-Christian times.
The new Roslagen flag is similar to the Swedish national flag. For his flag, Erik Rudolfsson chose the darker blue used for the flag of Sweden before 1906. White lines have been added to the yellow Nordic Cross.
“Waves breake, we sail and there’s ice on the sea in the winter. The white colour symbolizes all that,” Rudolfsson told Swedish Radio.
Visit Roslagen, tourism and marketing agency for four municipalities in the Roslagen area, supports Erik Rudolfsson’s flag and writes about it on their website:
“Over the years, I have seen several different regional and provincial flags that people feel pride about. Of course, Roslagen deserves its own flag,” Rudolfsson explains.
Anton Pihl 