Unidentified flag reported in 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' 1771 (Spain)

Last modified: 2005-03-05 by santiago dotor
Keywords: unidentified flag |
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by Randy Young

• Description

See also:

• Historical Flags 1701-1785 (Spain)
• War Ensign 1785-1931, also State and War Flag 1843-1931 (Spain)
• Historical Flags (Spain)

Description

First of three Spanish flags listed in the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1771. Horizontal tricolour: top 1/4 in red, bottom 1/4 in blue, and the middle in yellow. Similar to the flag used by the Spanish Republic.

Randy Young, 31 July 1998

Strange flag. Absolutely unknown to me. In 1771 the red-yellow-red flag didn't exist yet. After [the end of the Spanish War of Succession in] 1714 the French rulers of Spain used the Bourbon white flag.

Jaume Ollé, 3 August 1998

The flag of Encyclopaedia Britannica is not very strange. It might have been a variant of Spanish colours used in the Americas. There have been used flags of red-yellow and blue stripes even before 1785. The blue for America (or overseas). We are still searching [at the Archiv für Flaggenkunde] for a solution about this flag.

Ralf Stelter, 13 June 1999