Catalonia (Autonomous Community, Spain)

Cataluña, Catalunya

Last modified: 2019-09-08 by ivan sache
Keywords: catalonia |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors

Flag of Catalonia - Image by António Martins, 28 October 2017

• Flag of Catalonia
• Government flags
• Origin of the flag of Catalonia
• Political and cultural flags
• Sports flags
• Historical flags

• Provinces
  • Province of Barcelona
  • Province of Girona
  • Province of Lleida
  • Province of Tarragona
• Municipalities
• Tabarnia (Proposed autonomous community)

See also:

• Spain

Flag of Catalonia

The flag of Catalonia is called the senyera, a Catalan word meaning "a signal".

Pascal Vagnat & Jordi Pastale, 28 November 1995

The Flag Day of Catalunya is the 11th of September, the day that Barcelona was invaded by Felipe V's troops in 1714 and the national government was suppressed.

Volker Liebermann, 20 August 2004

Origin of the flag of Catalonia

There is an ongoing discussion about the origin of the flag, which originated in the early Middle Ages, from when little written or pictorial evidence remains.
Shortly thereafter (1137) the Kings of Aragón and the Counts of Barcelona merged under a single dynasty, which was that of the Counts of Barcelona but used as first title that of King of Aragón for the sake of protocolar preeminence. The flag was thereafter very widely used as the flag of the Kingdom of Aragón, both before and after personal union with the Kingdom of Castile and León (1492), until the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (1714), whereby all particular rights of territories supporting the defeated pretender (Archduke Charles of Habsburg) were abolished.
The flag has been used since the early 20th century by Catalan nationalists alone, and during the Spanish Republic (1931-1939) by the autonomous Catalan regional government (Generalitat de Catalunya).

Research has been furthermore biased since the late 1970s, because of strong Catalan nationalist feelings and of the more recent existence of two autonomous communities in Spain (Aragón and Catalonia) using the same flag, with the only difference of Aragón defacing it with its coat of arms.

Santiago Dotor, 20 October 2000