Flag of Cartagena

The flag of Cartagena is crimson, a dark red, with the coat of arms of the city in the centre. That tone is so characteristic of it that in the Region of Murcia it is called ‘Cartagena red’.

How it came about

The coat of arms is much older than the flag. It appears for the first time in a document of 1532: a golden castle over the sea. The present drawing was proposed in 1929 by the city’s archivist and chronicler Federico Casal Martínez, who added the crown in the shape of a wall.

The crimson flag with that coat of arms was used out of tradition, without any written rule. The city council fixed it for the first time in its Protocol, Honours and Distinctions Regulation, approved by the plenary on 17 December 2020. It also says there how it should be: one and a half times longer than wide, and with the coat of arms at two fifths of its width.

How it has changed

No change is known. The 2020 regulation simply gathered up the flag the city already used.

Other flags and proposals

In the port, and increasingly in the street, another Cartagena flag is seen, older than the municipal one.

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  No oficial · 1845

  The maritime flag

  Red with a white cross. A royal order of 1845 gave each maritime province of Spain a flag to distinguish its merchant ships, and this was Cartagena’s. Today many residents use it as a symbol of the city, although the city council has not made it official.

What it means

• Crimson

  the traditional colour of the city, which ended up giving its name to a shade of red.

• Golden castle on rocks and waves

  the city, built beside the sea.

• Castles and lions of the border

  four golden castles on red and four red lions on silver, the same symbols as the coat of arms of Castile and León.

• Mural crown

  a crown shaped like a wall with towers, the one many city coats of arms carry.

• Motto

  the titles Cartagena has received throughout its history.

Fun facts

1. Its colour is in the flag of Murcia

   The Statute of Autonomy of the Region of Murcia, of 1982, says the regional flag is on a ‘crimson or Cartagena red’ field. The colour of a city ended up in the law of the whole region.

2. A castle with its own sign

   On the oldest known coat of arms, of 1532, the castle was surrounded by a phrase so that nobody would doubt it: ‘This is the castle of Cartagena’.

3. Without the stamp of the region

   Murcian law asks the autonomous community to approve municipal flags. In 2015 the Flags of the World portal included Cartagena’s among the 18 flags of Murcian municipalities that no official body had approved; in 2020 the city council regulated it itself.

4. A city with a military rank

   Besides its titles of nobility, Cartagena holds the honours of Marshal of the Armies, according to its protocol regulation.

Location

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