Odemira Municipality (Portugal)

Last modified: 2006-02-05 by antonio martins
Keywords: odemira | coat of arms | river mira | canting | trees: 2 | fish: 3 | tower (white) | wheat |
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• About the flag
• Presentation of Odemira

• Municipalities of Portugal
• Portugal

• Page about the municipal flag and coat of arms of Odemira at Sérgio Horta’s website (in Portuguese).
  reported by Jorge Candeias, 29 Feb 1999
• Page about Odemira at the Portuguese Municipalities’s Association website (incl. iimage of the arms)
  reported by António Martins, 18 Nov 2001

About the flag

It is a quite typical portuguese municipal flag, with the coat of arms centered on a background quartely (town rank) of yellow and green. The coat of arms is sable, on a fess argent two trees proper, in chief a tower argent with purple windows, between two bundles of wheath, of three ears each, or tied purple, in base on a wavy fess azure fimbriated argent, tree fish of the same naiant dexter. Mural crown argent with four visible towers (town rank), and white scroll reading in black upper case letters "VILA DE ODEMIRA".
António Martins, 24 Feb 2000

The arms are partly canting as they show a river and the syllable "Ode" in this toponym (as in many others in Portugal) comes from arabic "wad", "river" (in Spain it originated current "Guad" forms): Mira river crosses the town and actually drains most of the municipal territory.
António Martins, 24 Feb 2000

Presentation of Odemira

Odemira municipality had 25 670 inhabitants in 1990, and it is divided in 15 communes, covering 1721 km². It belongs to the Beja District and to the old province of Baixo Alentejo. Trivia: Odemira is the largest municipality in Portugal.
António Martins, 24 Feb 2000