Barreiro Municipality (Portugal)

Last modified: 2005-08-26 by antonio martins
Keywords: barreiro | coat of arms: boat | grapes (golden) | grapes (purple) | cross: saint james | rope | cogwheel |
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• About the flag
• Version without the coat of arms
• Previous flags

• Municipalities of Portugal
• Portugal

• Municipal website
  reported by Dov Gutterman, 14 Jul 1999
• Page about the municipal flag and coat of arms of Barreiro at Sérgio Horta’s website (in Portuguese).
  reported by Jorge Candeias, 29 Feb 1999
• Page about Barreiro at the Portuguese Municipalities’s Association website (incl. image of the arms)
  reported by António Martins, 18 Nov 2001

About the flag

It is a quite typical portuguese municipal flag, with the coat of arms centered on a background gyronny (meaning city rank) of red and black. The coat of arms is argent on a counterchief of two wavy fesses azure a Tagus estuary traditional fishing ship muleta dressed gules below a rope knot per fess and throughout, in chief a Saint James sword-cross purple between a cogwheel vert dexter and a bunch of grapes sinister leaved of the same and fruited of the former. Mural crown argent with five visible towers (city rank) and white scroll reading in black upper case letters "CIDADE DO BARREIRO".
António Martins, 12 Sep 2003

"Barreiro" means means "claypit", but there is no clay on the coat of arms. The ship stands for itself, the rope knot reinforces the seamanship connection, the cross alludes to the Saint James Order, who was donated the municipal territory after its conquer in the 1240ies, and the cogwheel and grapes have the evident meanings.
António Martins, 12 Sep 2003

Arms detail

Version without the coat of arms

Plain (monocolored) portuguese subnational flags are not allowed to have armless variations: plain flags always carry the coat of arms.
Jorge Candeias, 18 Jul 1999

Previous flags

1940-1984

The previous flag of Barreiro, before the upgrade from town to city status, differs in number of visible towers (four instead of five) and the background partition (quartered instead of gyronny). This is to be expected — but there was also a change in the armorial bearings, which is not usual, let alone required, especially because these changes cannot be considered as simple corrections: The previous coat of arms was argent on a counterchief of four wavy fesses azure a Tagus estuary traditional fishing ship muleta dressed gules below a Saint James sword-cross purple between two bunches of grapes leaved vert and fruited or. Obviuously the changes were in the general direction of the cluttered token-based heraldry so common in portuguse subnational coats of arms.
António Martins, 12 Sep 2003