Golden castles and purple lions in four quarters: the flag of Castile and León is the coat of arms of its two old kingdoms turned into cloth.
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 76:99 ratio, wider than it is high, divided into four equal quarters: two red with golden castles and two white with purple lions.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
This is the flag of Castile and León. Don’t confuse it with the flag of:
Castile and LeónThis one
León ↗Every date in its story, at a glance.
In 1230, King Ferdinand III inherited both kingdoms: Castile from his mother and León from…
When the autonomous community was created, its Statute of Autonomy of 1983 recovered that design…
In 1989 a decree fixed its measurements and colours more precisely
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Castile and León is divided into four panels, like a chessboard. In two of them, red, there is a golden castle; in the other two, white, a purple lion. It is not a flag of stripes: it is a medieval coat of arms passed straight onto cloth, which in vexillology, the study of flags, is called a heraldic flag.
Castile and León were two different kingdoms during the Middle Ages. Each had its symbol: Castile, a golden castle on red; León, a lion on white. It was a play on words with their names, something very usual in the coats of arms of the time.
In 1230, King Ferdinand III inherited both kingdoms: Castile from his mother and León from his father. To show that neither ruled over the other, he joined the two symbols in a single coat of arms, divided into four parts. That coat of arms represented the Crown of Castile for centuries.
When the autonomous community was created, its Statute of Autonomy of 1983 recovered that design as the official flag.
The design has not changed since 1983. In 1989 a decree fixed its measurements and colours more precisely.
Each quarter represents one of the two old kingdoms:
Golden castle on red
the Kingdom of Castile.
Purple lion on white
the Kingdom of León.
Four equal quarters
the union of the two kingdoms in equality, just as Ferdinand III wanted to show it.
The coat of arms of Ferdinand III is considered one of the first to use quartering, the division into four parts to join the symbols of two families or kingdoms. It later spread across the whole continent.
A decree of 1989 fixes it at 76 parts high by 99 long, a ratio almost no other flag uses.
The lion is purple, one of the least frequent colours in heraldry. That is why it is painted anywhere from purple to dark red.
Test what you have read about the flag of Castile and León.
Text based on the article “Bandera de Castilla y León” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Rastrojo (D•ES), Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0.
