The flag of Hautes-Pyrénées, with the two lions of the county of Bigorre, is declared fictitious: the real banner is blue with the logo of the council.
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: the coat of arms of the department painted over the whole field, with no divisions or ornaments.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The coat of arms of Hautes-Pyrénées bears two red lions of the county of Bigorre on a yellow field. Painted onto a field, it becomes a flag that the file itself admits is fictitious: the real banner is blue, with the logo of the departmental council.
Hautes-Pyrénées is a French department with its capital in Tarbes, on the border with Spain. Its historicist coat of arms —the two lions of Bigorre —is sometimes reproduced as if it were a flag, but it is not.
The flag the departmental council really uses is a blue field with the logo of the department.
It has not changed, because it never existed as an official flag. The design of the lions is an improvised armorial banner: the coat of arms of the department painted over the whole field, with no divisions or ornaments.
Yellow
the single field of the cloth.
Two red lions
one above the other, walking towards the flagpole, and turned back —paired.
No divisions
there are no stripes, borders or other figures.
The reference file for this flag qualifies the design as fictitious. It is an honest and rare case: instead of presenting a painted coat of arms as a banner, it admits that the department has another. Many sources do exactly the opposite.
The county of Bigorre, ancestor of the department, used two lions pawing at each other. The coat of arms keeps them, one above the other and facing each other. It is one of those figures that survive intact through administrative change: the fourth quarter of the department is the intact medieval county.
The flag the departmental council really flies is a blue field with a logo. It is a trend in the French departments: where there is no traditional coat of arms, the graphic mark of the institution is used instead.
Test what you have read about the flag of Department of Hautes-Pyrénées.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Patrick87, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
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