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Municipality of Chiclana de la Frontera (Cádiz Province, Andalusia, Spain)

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image by WP User:MiguelAngel fotografo, modified by Ivan Sache, 01 Jul 2009

Introduction
Description
Coat of Arms

See also:

Introduction

The municipality of Chiclana de la Frontera (76,171 inhabitants in 2008; 20,545 ha) is located 25 km south of Cádiz.

Successively colonized by the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans, Chiclana de la Frontera was located in the upper Middle Ages on the border (in Spanish, "frontera"), between the Muslim and Christian states. On 15 May 1303, King Fernando IV transfered the domain of Chiclana to Alonso Pérez de Guzmán "El Bueno," as a reward for the seizure of Tarifa from the Moors in 1294. On 5 March 1811, in the Battle of Chiclana (aka Battle of Barrosa), the Anglo-Spanish troops defeated three divisions of Napoléon's army in an attempt to lift the siege of Cádiz. The French occupation of Chiclana ceased in August 1812. In August 1876, King Alfonso XII granted the title of "ciudad" (town) to Chiclana. In 1884, the Marquis of Bertemati founded near the town the Campano Wine-Growing Colony; a modern viticultural and social experiment, the colony was awarded in 1895 a gold medal in the 13th World Wine Exhibition held at Bordeaux for the red wine called "Rouge Royal" (in French, Royal Red).

Chiclana de la Frontera is the birth town of the politician and economist Juan de Dios Álvarez Mendizábal (1790-1853). Mendizábal supported the Liberals in their struggle against King Ferdinand VII. On 14 September 1835, he was appointed Prime Minister by Queen Regent Maria Christina. Mendizábal could not stop the Carlist War and had to resign in 1836; a few months later, a revolt forced the Queen to restore the 1812 Constitution. The new government led by Mendizábal suppressed the nobility titles, confiscated the goods of the church and set up a free press. The Romantic poet and playwright Antonio García Gutiérrez (1813-1884), also born in Chiclana de la Frontera, is mostly known through the adaptations of two of his works by Guiseppe Verdi, as the operas "Il Trovatore" (1853) and "Simon Boccanegra" (1857). However, the most famous local hero of Chiclana must be the torero Francisco Montes Reina "Paquiro" (1804-1851), a great modernizer of the corrida. Paquero wrote the treatise "Tauromachia completa," improved the torero's costume (the famous "Traje de Luz," Dress of Light) and created a new headdress called "montera."

Source: Municipal website

Ivan Sache, 01 Jul 2009

Description

The flag of Chiclana de la Frontera was approved by the Municipal Council on 15 November 2007 and submitted on 4 December 2007 to the General Directorate of Local Administration, which confirmed it by Decree on 8 January 2008, published in the Andalusian official gazette (Boletín Oficial de la Junta de Andalucía, BOJA) No. 17 on 24 January 2008.

The relevant parts of the Decree are the following: "- Rectangular in proportions 2:3, of colour (c) crimson with in the middle of the panel the heraldic shield of the municipality,which represents its history."

The flag should be registered on the Andalusian Register of Local Entities, with its official written description and graphics (as originally submitted, but unfortunately not apprended to the Decree).

Source: BOJA No. 17, p. 43, 24 January 2008

Ivan Sache, 01 Jul 2009

Coat of Arms

The coat of arms of Chiclana de la Frontera was approved by the Municpal Council on 11 April 1969, as proposed in a memoir by Delgado Orellana. The blazon is "Azure a tower or port and windows gules surmonting two rocks proper issuant from waves azure and argent, flanked by two lions or. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown open." The tower represents the old castle of Liro, named after Tiro, an ancient Phenician local settlement. The waves represent the river Liro watering the town. The open crown recalls that the town is an ancient Royal town.

Source: tristeyazul.com

Ivan Sache, 01 Jul 2009