Last modified: 2015-05-02 by ivan sache
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Flag of the Canary Islands- Images by Juan Manuel Gabino Villascán & Klaus-Michael Schneider, 9 May 2007
Top row, as officially prescribed since 2005;
Bottom row, as prescribed before 2005 and still widely used.
On this page:
Other Canarian pages on this website:
See also:
External resource:
The specifications of the flag are given in the manual of corporate identity prescribed by Decree No. 184 of 21 December 2004 of the Governement of the Canary Islands, published on 7 January 2005 in the officiual gazette of the Canary Islands. The Decree was amended by Order of 24 November 2005, published on 2 December 2005 in the official gazette of the Canary Islands.
The colours are specified as follows:
Pantone CMYK (%) RGB RAL Yellow 7406 0-20-100-0 255-204-0 1023 Blue 3005 100-35-0-0 7-104-160 5015
Flags with a darker shade of blue are still widely used in the islands, fors instance by several municipalities and in front of the building of the Government services in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
José Manuel Erbez & Juan Manuel Gabino Villascán, 21 December 2009
Coat of arms of the Canary Islands - Image by Juan Manuel Gabino Villascánr, 11 February 2006
The coat of arms of the Canary Islands is prescribed in Article 6 of the Autonomy Statutes as "Azure seven islands argent 2, 2, 2 and 1. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown or surmounted by a scroll argent inscribed with the motto "Océano" sable. The shield supported by tw-o dgos proper with collars".
The specifications of the coat of arms are given in the manual of corporate identity prescribed by Decree No. 184 of 21 December 2004 of the Governement of the Canary Islands, published on 7 January 2005 in the officiual gazette of the Canary Islands. The Decree was amanded by Order of 24 November 2005, published on 2 December 2005 in the official gazette of the Canary Islands.
The colours are specified as follows (Pantone):
Black Pantone Black Silver/Grey Pantone 7544 Red/Gules Pantone 485 Maroon (dogs) Pantone 722 (for dogs) Yellow/Gold Pantone 7406 Blue/Azure Pantone 3005
Santiago Dotor, Ivan Sache & Juan Manuel Gabino Villascánr, 11 February 2006
The Parliamentary Commission for the reform of the Autonomy Statutes proposed that the collars are removed from the dogs supporting the coat of arms. The commission claimed that the collars represent submission of the dogs, which are free animals when the collars are removed. The discussion seems to have started with the proposal of suppressing the dogs from the coat of arms, which was not supported. The only party which did not support the removal of the collars was the PP.
[La Opinión de Tenerife, 25 October 2004]
Ivan Sache, 26 October 2004
According to José Manuel Erbez (website), the current flag was born on 7 September 1961, on the eve of the fiesta of Virgin Mary of Pino, the patron saint of Gran Canaria. A family of activists, María del Carmen Sarmiento, and their sons Arturo and Jesús made some 3,000 flags of paper ribbons and gave them to the people on the fiesta organized the next day, 8 September 1961, in Teror. Spontaneously, the people of Teror recognized these colours as the proper Canarian ones.
Probably inadvertently, the creators of this white-blue-yellow flag continued the idea of the Atheneum flag, but replacing the stars with the united colours of the two Canarian maritime registration flags, white and blue for Santa Cruz de Tenerife and blue and yellow for Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, arranged in the geographical order: Santa Cruz, as the western province, on the left, and Las Palmas, as the eastern province, on the right.
However, neither the proportions of the stripes nor the shade of blue are known exactly. The blue stripe was probably a little bit broader.
On 10 August 1982, the islands gained autonomy. Since then the islands used a vertical white-blue-yellow flag with stripes of equal width. There existed versions with and without the coat of arms within the blue stripe. The shade of blue is said to be Navy blue, but according to observations it seemed to be rather a dark Royal blue.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 31 March 2008
Vertical flag of the Canary Islands - Image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 10 March 2010
A vertical flag of the Canary Islands, with proportions 3:1, was seen on 11 February 2010 in the port area of Los Christianos, La Gomera Island, hoisted from a staff with horizontal bar. The colours are those of the 1980s version.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 10 March 2010
Flag with horizontal stripes - Image by Eugene Ipavec, 25 January 2009
According to José Manuel Erbez (website), a common, absolutely unofficial variant of the Canarian flag has the stripes displayed horizontally. One of the main reasons being that it is easy to purchase white-blue-yellow bunting by the meter at local shops.
Santiago Dotor, 26 April 2008