Adolf Durán's Proposal for Eastern Aragon 1985 (Aragon, Spain)

Franja de Ponent

Last modified: 2004-12-29 by santiago dotor
Keywords: franja de ponent | aragon | stripes: 9 (yellow-red) | chequy: hoist |
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2:3
N.B. this was a proposal, never actually hoisted
by António Martins

• Description

See also:

• Aragon (Spain)
• Spain

Franja del Ponent is Catalan for "Western Fringe", a strip of territory in Eastern Aragon, where Catalan is the local language. (...) This proposal is inspired in the Catalan senyera. A vertical hoist area (about 1/6th of the width) is counterchanged, creating five red stripes standing for the five historical comarques [counties or subprovincial areas] of the region, from North to South: Alta Ribagorza, Ribagorza, Llitera, Baix Cinca and Matarranya. The design of the flag thus symbolizes the number and geographical situation of these comarques, west of Catalonia (with the hoist at the viewer's left hand). Source: Jaume Ollé.

António Martins, 9 June 2000

I fully disagree with the alleged use of such flag in several municipalities in eastern Aragon. I frequently travel in that area and I have never seen any flag as the one described. Apart from that, I disagree with the Franja de Ponent term used to refer to the eastern comarcas [unofficial subprovincial areas] of Aragon, which ought to include from a historical point of view that of Ribagorza and the Aran Valley —currently under Catalan administration— both of which were historically and administratively Aragonese until the provincial division during Isabel II's reign [mid-19th century].

Chuse Fernández, translated by Santiago Dotor, 3 May 2001

I agree. This flag was a creation suggested by the Catalan mayors of this zone in the years of the so-called transition [late 1970s and early 1980s], but its use is doubtful. (...) Until early 19th century the Catalan administrative frontier was always the Cinca River (thus including this stripe), and after that the river continued being the linguistic frontier. During the Napoleonic occupation this land was part of two departments (Segre, capital Solsona, and Boches-du-Ebre, capital Tarragona) except Val d'Aran [Aran Valley] that was annexed to France.

Jaume Ollé, 10 May 2001

According Banderas this flag was designed by Adolf Duran to suggestion of the elected Catalan majors of the zone, but never reached official status. (...) Unluckily there's about 60 issues with Duran's collaborations and is hard to search each one, each page and the drawings are in w/b and many local flags have similar appearance to this flag then the research must be slow, reading captions if any, or articles. Sorry I don't have time for this.

Jaume Ollé, 1 and 3 October 2003

Tomás Rodríguez, the SEV secretary wrote me (my translation):

Con la ayuda de Jorge te puedo contestar. Adolfo Durán en su comunicación en el XI CIV, celebrado en Madrid, cita la propuesta de dicha bandera, que diseñó él mismo "a instancias de una autoridad municipal de la zona". En mi opinión, no pasó de una propuesta en papel.

I can answer you with Jorge [Hurtado]'s help. In his communication to the 11th ICV held in Madrid [1985], Adolfo Durán mentioned this flag proposal, designed by himself "following the initiative of one local authority in the area". In my opinion, it never got beyond a proposal on paper.

• the proposal was not the initiative of several mayors but of one local authority — not necessarily a mayor, maybe only a high ranking local official;
• the proposal does not appear to have been published in Banderas, but in the ICV's proceedings.

Santiago Dotor, 10 October 2003