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Cruzeiro, São Paulo State (Brazil)

Last modified: 2012-11-10 by ian macdonald
Keywords: sao paulo | cruzeiro |
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Cruzeiro, SP (Brazil) image by Dirk Schönberger, 19 October 2012
Source: http://www.cruzeiro.sp.gov.br/index.php/simbolos


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About the Flag

Thirteen blue and white horizontal stripes, with a red canton five stripes deep, bearing a central white disk with a blue map of the state, and a yellow star in each corner.

Official website at http://www.cruzeiro.sp.gov.br
Dirk Schönberger, 19 October 2012

The municipality of Cruzeiro (77,000 inhabitants in 2010; 30,457 ha) is located half-way (220 km) of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Cruzeiro originates in the settlement of Embaú, listed in 1747 in the records of the church of Lorena as a village of c. 360 people, depending on the parish of Piedade. According to the historian Diego Vasconcellos, the place was named for the Tupi word "mbaú" meaning "a canyon through the mountains"; Embaú was also the name of the only trail available for 200 years to cross the Serra de Mantiqueira mountains. In 1781, Friar Manoel da Ressurreição, the third Bishop of São Paulo, required from Sergeant Antonio Lopes da Lavra the building in Embaú of a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Conception; the chapel was consecrated on 7 October 1787 by Father Manoel Gomes Lourenço. The parish of Nossa Senhora da Conceiçãon do Embaú was established in 1846. The municipality of Nossa Senhora da Conceiçãon do Cruzeiro was established on 6 March 1871.

The flag is divided in 13 horizontal stripes, in turn celeste blue and white. The canton, covering five stripes, is made of a red rectangle charged with a white disk surrounding a blue map of São Paulo State. The five yellow stars forming the Southern Cross ("Cruzeiro") constellation are placed in the canton, one star in each corner, and the fifth, Epsilon, showing the location of Cruzeiro on the map of the State.

The flag is therefore a derivation of the flag of São Paulo State, the black stripes being recoloured in blue, the map of Brazil being replaced by the map of the State, and a fifth star being added to represent Cruzeiro.

Photo of the flag http://www.cruzeiro.sp.gov.br/index.php/component/joomgallery/eventos/1-simpsio-de-sade-da-populao-negra-de-cruzeiro/simposio-175.
Ivan Sache, 3 November 2012