The flag of the former county of Hordaland, Norway. Its design is shared with the county arms, and consists of a crown above two crossed axes. This motif originates from a seal, that of the guild of Saint Olaf at Onarheim, which was used on behalf of Sunnhordland district on a royal letter of proclamation from 1344. The axe is the aforesaid saint's instrument of martyrdom. While it is unknown what tinctures the arms would have had in the Middle Ages, the red and gold of the modern resurrection harmonize with the national arms.
As early as in 1918, the question of county arms had been considered by the county council—nothing initially came out of this, and it would last until 1949 before the council decided that Hordaland had to get arms of its own. Getting the design approved by the Norwegian government would however prove to be a drawn‐out process lasting 12 years. Medieval coinage would feature one or two axes as a royal emblem, and as such, the National Archives entertained the idea of reserving the Onarheim seal as secondary national arms. This ultimately led nowhere, and so, on December 1st, 1961, arms based upon the old seal and a corresponding flag were finally approved for Hordaland by royal resolution.