Eight white and black gironnies with a white castle, the name of the city made into a drawing: the flag of Castelo Branco has been official since 1936.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.
It is a rectangular field with a 2:3 ratio divided into eight gironnies, which are eight triangles that start at the centre, alternating white and black, with the coat of arms of the city in the middle.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
Every date in its story, at a glance.
The city had an older coat of arms, from 1860, which its Portuguese Wikipedia article shows…
It followed the model Portugal fixed in 1930 for cities: eight gironnies in the two main colours…
Flag and coat of arms were approved and published in the Diário do Governo (I Série) on 11 January…
In 2013 a variant was seen with a simpler castle and without the cross of the Order of Christ
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Castelo Branco is white and black, in eight gironnies, and carries in the centre the coat of arms with a white castle. It is almost identical to that of Lisbon, but without copying it: it is a coincidence of colours.
Flag and coat of arms were approved and published in the Diário do Governo (I Série) on 11 January 1936. It followed the model Portugal fixed in 1930 for cities: eight gironnies in the two main colours of the coat of arms. The coat of arms is a castle of silver with the joints of the stones in black, and hence the white and the black.
The name of the city is the joke of the coat of arms: Castelo Branco means “white castle”, and that is why the castle is white.
I did not find an earlier flag. The city had an older coat of arms, from 1860, which its Portuguese Wikipedia article shows and which Heraldry of the World also records with a version from 1862.
1860
Old coat of arms of the city, before the rules of 1930. The flag that went with it is not known.
1936
Official flag and coat of arms. The white and black gironnies are the same as those of Lisbon, because the rule requires using the main colours of the coat of arms. In 2013 a variant was seen with a simpler castle and without the cross of the Order of Christ.
White and black
the silver castle and the black of its joints.
White castle
it is the name of the city made into a drawing.
Mural crown of five towers
it marks that it is a city.
Collar of the Order of Christ
a decoration. It is unusual, because almost all the town councils with a decoration wear that of the Tower and the Sword.
According to Flags of the World, the coat of arms carries the Order of Christ, not the Tower and the Sword as almost all the others. The city was made an honorary member of that order on 22 September 1931.
According to the Portuguese Wikipedia, Castelo Branco, Marco de Canaveses, São João da Madeira and Tavira have the same white and black flag as Lisbon, only because the law requires using the colours of the coat of arms.
Test what you have read about the flag of Castelo Branco.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Autor desconocido, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0.
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