Subnational flags of Portugal

Last modified: 2009-06-13 by antónio martins
Keywords: subnational |
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• Presentation
• Legal frame
• 1st level
  • Autonomous Regions:
    • Azores
    • Madeira
  • would-be Administrative Regions (rejected in the 1999 referendum) (clickable map)
  • C.C.R.s / NUT-2 (clickable map)
  • Districts (clickable map)
  • Traditional provinces (clickable map)
  • Colonies / Overseas provinces (-1975; Macao -1999)
• 2nd level
  • Municipalities (incl. pre-1975 colonial municipal flags)
• 3rd level
  • Communes
• Other territorial flags (not officially administrative)
  • Tourism regions

• Laws about Portuguese local flags
• Portugal

• Cartografia histórica de Portugal Continental, by Luís Nuno Espinha da Silveira (in portuguese)
• Sério Horta’s website, with excellent images (in portuguese)
• André Serranho’s site on portuguese subnational Vexillology (in portuguese)

Presentation

• All portuguese-proper municipalities has widely used flags, all newly granted or revised in 1925-1935.
• All portuguese-proper communes are entitled to flag and arms since 1987, tought more than half are still lacking. Before that date, communal flags were not mandatory but could be granted on demand.
• None of the upper level division in mainland Portugal had any distinct flag, expect for the districts, wich (at least some) have scarcely known flags.
• Azores and Madeira have both official flags, both based in autonomist flags.
• No relevant autonomist or independentist flags of other areas are known.

Legal frame

Law no. 53/91 of August 7th (1991) legislates about «Heraldry of the “autarchies” and of collective entities of public administrative utility». The “autarchies” (autarquias, bodies of locally elected local government) are the administrative regions, the municipalities and the communes. I’m not sure, but I think that the «collective entities of public administrative utility» include things like the districts, perhaps the Commissions of Regional Coordination, the Metropolitan Areas of Lisbon and Oporto, and so on. This law omits the autonomous regions (Madeira and Azores); this may be a flaw in the law, or may be linked with the contitutional articles mentioned in the preambulum. Note that in Portugal [civic] heraldry still includes [civic] vexillology to its full extent.
Jorge Candeias, 08 Feb 1999

Arms and flags of cities and towns (proper)

According to art. 3 of law no. 53/91 of August 7th (1991), both the towns and the cities may adopt their own symbols, independently of the symbols of the municipality or commune they are the seat of. As far as I know, none has done it yet.
Jorge Candeias, 08 Feb 1999

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