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El Salvador - Historical Flags (1865 - 1912)

Last modified: 2005-06-03 by dov gutterman
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Overview

The El Salvadorian Stars and Stripes with 9 stars had a square canton. It was adopted on 28th April 1865. The law described the canton as having as many stars as there are provinces, but we have no records about flags with eleven or thirteen stars (which would have been possible), but a postage stamp of 1867 shows the arms with eleven stars and one of 1879 with thirteen stars(!). With number of stars rising the canton became longer.
The ensign had the coat of arms in the canton, but only on the obverse! On the reverse the stars were shown! So it happens that in the arms there are two flags. Sometimes the great coat of arms was shown, sometimes a lesser version, sometimes within a white circle sometimes directy on the red field.
The official name of the state was "El Salvador" since 12 June 1824 but as the Magna Carta of 1824 wrote: "El Estado se denominar? Estado del Salvador.", the name "Salvador" was used. From 1896 the name "El Salvador" was used on postage stamps, on coins it came in use in 1911, and a decree of 1915 prescribed the name "El Salvador" always to be written "...de El Slvador" and not "...del Salvador".

Sources are El Salvadorian literature, official E