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Flag of Salamanca

Crimson red with the coat of arms of the Roman bridge, the bull and the stripes: the flag of the city of Salamanca sums up its history in a single emblem.

Flag of Salamanca
Coat of arms
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The flag, in figures

Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.

Proportions
2:33 wide for every 2 high. 989 flags in the catalogue share it.
Properties
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
Use
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.
Colours
  • crimson red
Reference shades: the official one may vary slightly.
Coat of arms
YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.
Origin
Coat of arms of Salamanca
12

Take a closer look

  1. The crimson red cloth

  2. 1

    The city shield

  3. 2

    The crown

How it is described

The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.

Vexillological description

It is a rectangular field with a 2:3 ratio, crimson red, with the coat of arms of the city in the centre.

Field (the cloth)
red, in a tone similar to that of the flag of Spain.
Coat of arms
centred; its height is half the width of the flag. Divided in two: on the left, a stone bridge with a black bull and a tree; on the right, four red bars on gold surrounded by a blue border with eight small white crosses. Above, two half lions facing each other.
Crown
royal and open, above the coat of arms.

What it carries

Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.

The full story

How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.

The flag of the city of Salamanca is crimson red with the municipal coat of arms in the centre. In that coat of arms fit almost all the symbols of the city: the river, the Roman bridge, a bull, a tree and the red and yellow stripes of a medieval knight.

How it came about

The flag is set by article 5.3 of the basic regulation of the city council, which describes it as ‘crimson red with the municipal coat of arms’. It has not been found how long it has been used this way.

The coat of arms is much older. For centuries it was drawn in many ways, and on 11 June 1996 a decree of the Junta de Castile and León ‘rehabilitated’ it: it made it official and fixed its drawing for good.

How it has changed

No earlier versions of the flag are known. The important change was in the coat of arms: in 1996 its two halves were swapped, and the stripes, which were on the left, moved to the right.

What it means

  • Bridge, bull and tree

    the river Tormes, the Roman bridge, the Celtiberian stone bull that is now on the bridge, and a tree very common in the area.

  • Red bars on gold

    King Alfonso VI entrusted the repopulating of the city to Vela, of the family of the Counts of Barcelona, who carried the bars.

  • Small crosses of the border

    according to tradition, Vela won them fighting in the Holy Land.

Fun facts

  1. Barcelona stripes in Castile

    The stripes of the coat of arms are those of the Counts of Barcelona, the same as on the flag of Barcelona. They came with Vela, the noble who repopulated Salamanca in the 11th century.

  2. The bull is a sculpture

    The bull of the coat of arms stands for the verraco, a stone figure of the ancient Celtiberians that is now on the Roman bridge.

  3. A coat of arms with the halves swapped

    Until 1996 the stripes were on the left half of the coat of arms. The decree that made it official moved them to the right, and nobody has explained why.

  4. Lions, dogs or snakes

    Before 1996 the heads at the top of the coat of arms were painted in many ways: as lions, as mastiff dogs and even as snakes.

Location

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How much have you learnt?

Test what you have read about the flag of Salamanca.

  1. 1. Which one is the flag of Salamanca?

  2. 2. Which of these elements appears on the flag?

  3. 3. What are the proportions (height:width) of the flag?

Sources

Text based on the article “Salamanca (Municipality, Castilla y León, Spain) — Flags of the World” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sources consulted:

Credits

Flag image: David Martin, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0.

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