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Portuguese municipal flags

Last modified: 2005-08-26 by antonio martins
Keywords: municipal | municipality | city | coat of arms |
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Rules of portuguese heraldry and vexillology

In Portugal the various cities, towns, villages and so on are divided into 3 cathegories depending on the number of its inhabitants, and some other, sometimes esotheric things:

Aldeia (village):
from a few to some hundreds inhabitants
Vila (town):
in the range of a few thousands inhabitants
Cidade (city):
from about ten thousand to several hundreds of thousands inhabitants
This difference is reflected in the place’s coat of arms: to put it simple, the upper part of the coat of arms consists of a kind of castle with towers, a mural crown. Villages use 3 towers in that castle, towns use 4 and cities 5. Almost all portuguese municipal and communal coats of arms follow this rule. Finally, it should be said that the municipalities are named after their administrative center.
Jorge Candeias, 15 Sep 1997

According to the municipality’s flag law, only cities (cidades) have a gironny flag, towns (vilas) have them quartely. Of 305 minicipalities I suppose that no more than 70 are cities (where 39 in 1974…). There are some exceptions to this rule, of course -- by heart, I’d recall Calheta de São Jorge and Fronteira, wich are vertical bicolors instead of quartely; Lagos, that is saltire quarterly instead of gironny; and a number of flags that should de quarterly and are gironny or the other way around.

The law also says that the flag backgrounds should be one color (or metal) or metal and color -- not color and color nor metal and metal… But a lot of flags do not obey to this rule!…
António Martins, 3 Oct 1997

All the portuguese municipal and communal coats of arms are topped by a mural crown. As far as I know, there is only one exception to this rule, the municipality of Horta in the Azores, whose arms have a real crown on top (plus an arm holding a sword).
Jorge Candeias, 28 Apr 1998

It should be noted that that only communes (freguesias) and municipalities have flags and arms — cities, towns and vilages per se are not recognized as an adminstrative division. (Some municipalities occupy the same territory of the head, but typical municipalities have both urban and countryside areas…).
António Martins, 30 Apr 1998

Description and explanation of the portuguese municipal flags

The only way to learn the meaning of the charges in portuguese municipal coats of arms is by guessing, because they are not explained anywhere.
Jorge Candeias, 05 Apr 1998

Although this is not completely true (there are of courese law texts at the Official Journal, Diário da República, and some heraldic information published here and there), in practice is very difficult to gather a comprehensive listing of all of them (total 307, 18 more real soon now). Usually is necessary to individually send a letter to each municipality…
António Martins, 08 Apr 1998

Yes and no. Every municipal coat of arms is described in the law that creates the municipalities (the problem is knowing when this law was published and finding a copy of the Diário da República of that date, which is practically impossible for those that do not live in or near Lisbon). But, as far as I know, the charges are not explained anywhere. Even when we write letters to the municipalities, we usually only get the description, not the explaining.
Jorge Candeias, 08 Apr 1998

Sure, you’re right: The official text is only a description, not an explanation. This should be obtained from the Heraldry Committee, something quite difficult (and expensive), also to those living in Lisbon…
António Martins, 30 April 1998

There is a big confusion about the gyronny flag colour order in the law about portuguese municipal flags.
Sérgio Horta, 18 Feb 2001

While most printed flags have identical revreses with illegible writing, some quality flags have two identical images of the coat of arms sewn or embriodered on each side. The gyrony or quarterly background of the flag is naturaly not reversed in the reverse, though, the colors being thus in opposite positions.
António Martins, 30 Aug 2001

List of currently covered portuguese municipal flags

This list is growing everyday, as material contributed by visitors and list members from the last two years is finnaly edited. Please check often!