Flag of Westphalia (Prussian Province)

The Province of Westphalia was created in 1815 after the Congress of Vienna, when Prussia gathered its possessions between the Rhine and the Weser into a single administrative unit — among them the former prince-bishopric of Münster, parts of the Duchy of Westphalia and a patchwork of small territories. The capital was Münster. In the nineteenth century the south became the industrial heart of the continent: the Ruhr, with Dortmund, Bochum and Gelsenkirchen, grew within a few decades from farmland into Europe's largest mining and steel region, while the north stayed rural. That double nature still marks Westphalia today. The province ended in 1946, when the British occupation authorities merged it with the northern Rhineland to form the new state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Meaning

The flag shows two horizontal bands of equal width: white above, red below. These are Westphalia's provincial colours and at the same time the colours of its arms, which since the Middle Ages have borne the white horse on red. The horse counts as the emblem of the region and can still be found in the arms of North Rhine-Westphalia. It does not appear on the flag: like every Prussian provincial flag this one keeps to plain bands, without arms or emblem. Depictions that put the horse onto the stripes certainly exist — they come from heraldry and do not match the official version.