Plain red flag with the coat of arms of Melgaço, the northernmost municipality of Portugal: two lions hold an escutcheon with thirteen coins.
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 in plain red, with the arms of the town in the centre.
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 town already had history: in 1211 it received a royal charter confirming its status
It was one of many municipal flags approved in the 1930s
Flag and coat of arms were published on 17 December 1935 in the Diário do Governo
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Melgaço is red, plain, with the arms of the town in the centre. On it, two red lions hold a blue escutcheon with white coins. Melgaço is the northernmost municipality of Portugal, adjoining Galicia (flag of Galicia).
Flag and coat of arms were published on 17 December 1935 in the Diário do Governo, the official gazette of the time. It was one of many municipal flags approved in the 1930s. The town already had history: in 1211 it received a royal charter confirming its status, in thanks for resisting an invasion from the Kingdom of León.
No earlier versions of the flag or the coat of arms are known.
I have not found the official explanation.
Plain red
the colour of the ground, the same as that of the two lions.
Two red lions
they hold the escutcheon.
Blue escutcheon with thirteen coins
an ancient form of the quinas of the flag of Portugal.
Red castle over blue and white waves
in the centre, over a black mound.
Mural crown of four towers
the band says “VILA DE MELGAÇO”.
The quinas of the flag of Portugal have five escutcheons with five coins. In Melgaço the escutcheon has thirteen, arranged in rows, as in ancient versions.
It is in the far north of the country and several rivers, among them the Minho, mark its boundary with Galicia.
Test what you have read about the flag of Melgaço.
Flag image: Autor desconocido, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0.
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