Ribeira Grande Municipality (Portugal)

Concelho de Ribeira Grande, Açores

Last modified: 2014-11-08 by klaus-michael schneider
Keywords: ribeira grande | goshawk | star(5-point) | bridge | base(wavy) | quina |
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• About the Flag
• Version without Coat of Arms
• Previous Flag (1952 - 1986)
• Presentation of Ribeira Grande

• Ribeira Grande Communes
• Açores
• Portugal

• Page about Ribeira Grande at the Portuguese Municipalities’s Association website (incl. image of the arms)
  reported by António Martins, 18 Nov 2001

About the Flag

It is a fairly typical Portuguese municipal flag, with the coat of arms centred on a field gyronny (meaning city rank) of blue and white.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 21 Mar 1999

The coat of arms is Gules, a three arched bridge Argent, masoned and shadowed Azure by a river of three wavy fesses, Argent and Azure, and under a 5-point star Or, and a goshawk of the same, holding an ineschuteon charged with a saltire of five bezants Argent . Mural crown Argent with five visible towers (city rank) and white scroll reading in black upper case letters "RIBEIRA GRANDE".
Meaning:
The name means "Large Creek" and that is certainly the one represented by the azure-argent wavy fesses of the coat of arms (in portuguese heraldry, the sea is rather vert and argent). The bridge is pretty obvious.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 21 Mar 1999

The bird simply means that the municipality belongs to the Azores islands — in the images of the arms I have, there’s little to no difference between this bird and most of the other hawks in the Azorean municipal arms.
Jorge Candeias, 24 Mar 1999

Flag and arms adopted and published in Diário da República: III Série, III Série de on 16 June 1986
António Martins-Tuválkin, 21 Mar 1999

Version without Coat of Arms

Previous Flag (1952 - 1986)

It is a fairly typical Portuguese municipal flag, with the coat of arms centred on a field quartered (meaning town rank) of blue and white.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 21 Mar 1999

There was just a Mural crown Argent with four visible towers (town rank), else there had been no changes in 1986.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 2 Nov 2014

Former flag and arms adopted and published in Diário do Governo : II Série on 31 March 1952
António Martins-Tuválkin, 21 Mar 1999

Version without Coat of Arms

Presentation of Ribeira Grande

Ribeira Grande municipality had 27 620 inhabitants in 1990 (3rd largest in Azores), and is divided in 14 communes, covering 180 km². It is situated on the island of São Miguel and belongs to the Autonomous Region of Azores (old province of the same name) and to the old District of Ponta Delgada.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 21 Mar 1999

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