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Ponta Grossa, Paraná (Brazil)

image by Ivan Sache, 7 February 2022

About the Flag

About the Flag

The municipality of Ponta Grossa (355,336 inhabitants in 2020, therefore Paraná's 4th most populated municipality; 205,473 ha) is located 100 km north-west of Curitiba.

Ponta Grossa emerged as a resting place, then part of Castro, for tropeiros. The place was granted the status of parish on 15 September 1823; tradition reports that the inhabitants released a couple of doves and erected on their landing place a chapel dedicated to St. Ann, today the hill surmounted by St. Ann Cathedral.

The name of Ponta Grossa, lit. "thick tip", refers to a hill of big diameter surmounted by a group of trees, visible from a distance, used by tropeiros as a landmark. The writer Manoel Cirillo Ferreira claims that Miguel da Rocha Carvalhaes commissioned Francisco Mulato to find a suitable place to establish the seat of his domain; Mulato proposed a place "near a group of trees with a thick tip". Another writer, Nestor Victor, claims that the plot offered by Miguel da Rocha to establish the new settlement included a group of trees forming a thick tip. The proposed explanations differ in their details but all refer to a geographic landmark harboring specific vegetation.

https://www.pontagrossa.pr.gov.br/
Municipal website

The flag of Ponta Grossa is prescribed by Municipal Law No. 473 promulgated on 21 November 1969.

Article 1.
The flag of the municipality of Ponta Grossa has the following characteristics.
A white rectangle, with a blue diagonal stripe in the center, going from the upper left to the lower right corner, the blue diagonal bearing in the center two white doves, facing each other and supported by a red moon, having the shape of a concave convex lenticular segment, the doves surmounted by a golden crown outlined in black.

The characteristics of the municipal flag correspond to the tradition that frames the spirit of the people, as follows.
a) the blue and white colors, the predominant colors of the Blessed Virgin, invoked by people, through Our Lady of Vila Velha, mother of the Divine Grace, and St. Ann, her exalted mother, Ponta Grossa's patron saint.
b) the two white doves that, according to legend, chose the place where the first church was erected under St. Ann's patronage, today the Episcopal Cathedral, which gave rise, from the cluster of houses around it, to the town of Ponta Grossa.
c) the crown symbolizes the nickname "Princess of the Fields".
d) the red half moon highlights the foundation of Ponta Grossa, during the Imperial reign, whose predominant color was incarnate.

Article 2.
The flag shall be 14 units in width on 20 units in length; the crown, the doves and the half moon shall be placed in a diameter of 2.5 units; the diagonal stripe will have 6.2 units and a width of 4.5 unit, and the concave convex lenticular segment shall be of 0.1 unit in the direction of the focal radius.

https://leismunicipais.com.br/a/pr/p/ponta-grossa/decreto/1969/48/473/decreto-n-473-1969-cria-a-bandeira-do-municipio-de-ponta-grossa
Leis Municipais database

On the flag in use, the half moon and the segment appear to have been replaced by a wheat spike and a soybean plant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMzO3mI6EUI
Presentation of the flag by Cristina Bach

Photos
https://d.arede.info/ponta-grossa/338087/aniversario-de-197-anos-de-pg-e-marcado-por-atos-civicos
https://d.arede.info/ponta-grossa/239361/bandeira-de-pg-completa-49-anos
https://www.facebook.com/PrefeituraPontaGrossa/photos/4080994548665537
https://www.facebook.com/cmpgoficial/photos/4323117324463707
https://www.facebook.com/cmpgoficial/photos/4244035312371909
https://www.facebook.com/cmpgoficial/photos/4156763537765754

Ivan Sache, 7 February 2022