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Honduras - Historical Flags

Last modified: 2004-10-23 by dov gutterman
Keywords: honduras | united states of central america |
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Overview

Michel Lupant made a review on the flag of Honduras in Vexilla Belgica 1985. [Seems that Jaume only knows Michel's original article and not the very long corrections to that article].
Acording to this article, Honduras used the federal flag from 1823 to 1825. On 3 October1825, it established its own arms, but it is not quoted if this arms were used on the federal flag instead of the federal arms, below the federal arms as in Costa Rica, or were not used at all (at least until after 1839). In 1839 the federation was disolved but Honduras continue to use the federal flag (with the Honduras arms, I assume). On 2 April 1851 a new federation was established and the federal flag was B-W-B with new arms in center. But as this federation was disolved in few months, it can be suposed that the previous flags stay in use.
On 16 February 1866, decree 7 created the first national flag - The commercial flag which was of 3 or 4 "aunes" long and 9 pouces wide. Accoding to image from the book of Prof. Braganza the ratio was 3:8. [Jaume did read Michel's article, but he did not read the long follow-up article which corrected all the errors. If Jaume's measures were correct the flag would have been 2,5 or 3,3 m long and 21 cm high! The names of the measures are different and the text is different in all! Each stripe of the flag is 3 to 4 varas long and 9 pulgadas wide. So the flag is 27 pulgadas wide! ]
The 5 blue five-pointed stars were pictured as following:
a) By Braganza - semicircle from above to below  (Reference: Prof. J. Alfonso Braganza: La Bandera, representacion simbolica de la Nación Hondureña, su historia. Min. de Educación Publica, Departamento de recursos de Aprendizaje, sección de producción de materiales educativos, Tegucigalpa 1982)
b) By Admiralty Flags  - as in the present flags (Drawings of the flag in use at the present time by various nations, Admiralty, London, August 1889, p. 64) .
There was also a war flag and ensign: the national flag with the arms in the center in "Admiralty flags". The arms are not the one adopted in 1825 but differents (Was also adopted in 1866?).
In June 1895, there was a new attempt of federation and the flag of 1851 was readopted with slighty changed arms, but in November 1898 it was disolved, and the old flags were in use again. In fact I believe that they didn't disapear at all.
The war flag and ensign were perhaps changed around this years .In 1905 Flaggenbuch published the war flag and ensign bearing the arms in the center and the stars in semicircle below the arms. This image is same as in National Geographic Magazime flag issue 1917 (probably NGM was based in Flaggenbuch). The commerce ensign is as previousely, with 5 stars in both sources.
On 1906, it was promulgated a military ordinance and the military flag was described. There are some mistakes in the description. The flag is descirbed as square (but acccording Braganza was used in proportion 5:6) 1.40 m. with three stripes, in the white stripe embrodoined the national arms in a size of 50 cm.