Last modified: 2004-08-07 by dov gutterman
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by Jens Pattke, 13 Febuary 2004
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Flag of the Municipality of Girardot, State of Aragua -
Summoned to competition for the design of the municipal flag,
organized by the Mayor's Office of the Municipality Girardot, the
people of Aragua responded with numerous proposals. The examining
jury choose Mr. Francisco Martínez Chacón's design. The flag of
Girardot is composed by five strips diverse size and color: those
of green color symbolize the hope, the perseverance, the
intrepidity and the friendship as the inhabitants' of the
municipality virtues, as well as the greenery of the mountain to
whose foot is the municipal territory. The white strips represent
the faith, the purity and the integrity, virtues that reach
eminent expression in the Mother María of San José, native of
Choroní, coastal town of the municipality, and beatified by the
Pope Juan Pablo II at the City of the Vatican, May 7, 1995. The
indigo blue strip, represents the justice, the pity and the
loyalty, and also the marine, lacustrine and fluvial waters that
bath the soil of the municipality. Toward the center, appears the
coat of arms of the municipality. The flag was hoisted by first
time on March 5, 2001, on ocassion of the tricentennial of the
city of Maracay, capital of the municipality and of the state of
Aragua.
Coat of arms of the Municipality of Girardot, State of Aragua -
It was adopted toward 1960, I don't have the precise date. It is
divided in three barracks: in the first one, gold, there is a
figure of a non proven historically Indian chief called Maracaya,
from where the name of the city of Maracay would come; the
second, azure, contains five fruits of cocoa (Theobroma cocoa),
pillar of the regional and Venezuelan economy until the end of
the 19th. Century, and still of the best in the world; the third,
red, contains the head of a jaguar (Panthera onca or Jaguarius
onca), whereas according to another version the name of Maracay
would come from the Caribbean (Indian) voice for that animal,
maracaya. This same word, Maracaya, is in a tape at the top.
Another tape, at the bottom, contains three historical dates:
March 5, 1701, when the Bishop of Caracas, Diego de Baños y
Sotomayor, rose San José of Maracay as an ecclesiastical
viceparish, to make offcial its existence; January 22, 1814, when
the Liberator Simón Bolívar rose it to the range of city
through an ordinance; and March 12, 1917, when the Legislative
Assembly of the State designated it as the capital city of
Aragua.
The name of the Municipality, Girardot, is an homage to Colonel
Atanasio Girardot, a Colombian officer in the Liberator's Army,
who died in Venezuela, in the site of Bárbula, State of
Carabobo, in 1813. There is a Girardot Square (plaza Girardot) in
Maracay, with a monolite which regards the Americans that came
with the General Francisco de Miranda expedition to liberate
Venezuela, in 1806, and died as POW