The City-emblem is formed like a shield - with red bottomcolour, two crossed skiing-poles between two  uprised skis between two golden rosetrees. The shieldfoot is golden.  This City-emblem has been in use for about 100 years, and has changed several times since the very first emblem known from the 16th century. The emblem has nothing to do with the name of the city, - Skien - which is pronounced  'scheen' in norwegian - similar to the english pronouncation of the word shear - if you change te r in shear with an n.

The name Skien - is developed from Skidan or skydan, which means  "the city which is splitting the water".

An old  story tells us about a skiing person, followd by a furious bear. The skier saved his life thanks to his skis. The plaser where he stopped, he found a nice place to settle, - and named this place after the skies who saved him.

Another theory - related to Skien's city-emblem (seal) from before 1609, which is not found caused themany destroying cityfires.  A such seal might have had Catholic symbols. Therefore this seal has not been used after the religious reformation.  The seal from 1609 had a crusifics symbol and two shepards poles. .

Other versions had a  vertical pole between two skis. In Skiens newer history, these poles had snow-guards - like those on todays cityemblem.

The flowers on both sides has changed from time to time. From fourbladed flowers,  to pinewood-trees, fir-tree and rose-trees. Those rosetrees has been called lilies from time to time. By the way - the most common and likely symbol in the old days were roses.  Todays description says... "Two golden rose-trees standing om a golden shield-foot".