Coat of arms of Arvika
Arvika’s arms show a silver horse on a blue field scattered with silver cogwheels.
Swedish description in the Heraldica record
I blått fält beströdd med kugghjul av silver en häst av silver.
This is the Swedish description in the Heraldica record. How it was composed and whether it is an official blazon have not been independently verified here. The editorial text below is based on the linked municipal source.
Designers
- Vladimir A. Sagerlund
Registration and history
- 31 December 1918: Royal confirmation on
- 11 January 1974: Registered at the National Board of Patents and Registration
The arms’ design
The municipality says the horse and cogwheels form part of the blazon established in 1918. One possible interpretation links the horse to a Värmland legend of the water spirit Näcken appearing as a white horse; the municipality also notes other theories.
Source: Arvika kommun: Kommunvapnet
Background and the source’s interpretation
After the 1971 municipal merger, Arvika’s town arms were chosen for the new municipality. The municipality says age, familiarity, a link to a local legend and the town’s size were among the reasons. The legendary connection is presented as a possibility, not a certain origin.
Source: Arvika kommun: Kommunvapnet
Heraldic elements
The heraldic elements are identified using HERO, a heraldry ontology published through Finland's Finto service. It provides structured terminology for describing coats of arms and their components. The list describes the structure of the arms, not the symbolic meaning of its elements.
- escutcheon
- horse
- field
- Argent
- Azure
- cogwheel
- unpartitioned
Sources and image rights
Heraldica / National Archives of Finland · Wikidata
Image licence: CC BY-SA 3.0
Image source and credit: National Archives of Sweden / Vladimir Sagerlund
Original image. The image has been resized and converted to WebP. The derivative retains the original image’s licence.
