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Municipality of Alcoletge (Segrià County, Lleida Province, Catalonia, Spain)

2:3
by Blas Delgado
Flag adopted 26 May 2000

Description

See also:

Lleida Province (Catalonia, Spain)
Catalonia (Cataluña / Catalunya, Spain)
Spain

Description

Yellow flag with a centred black castle with yellow gate and windows, as high as 3/4 of the flag's height and as wide as 1/3 of the flag's length. Centred on the hoist and fly thirds of the flag, two black elm trees, each as high as 1/3 of the flag's height and as wide as 1/6 of the flag's length. Ratio 2:3.

The flag is a banner of the arms (blazoned Or a castle Sable, gate and windows of the field, between two elm trees erradicated of the second). The castle is canting for the municipality's original Arab name, Al-Qulaia (little castle). The colours are those of the Anglesola family, former lords of Alcoletge. Flag adopted 26th May 2000. Source for image and text: Fluvià 2001. The image in this source shows the charges as grey, rather than black as in the official description.

Some additional information, extracted from this webpage of the Statistics Institute of Catalonia (Idescat):

Area (km2): 16.7
County: Segrià
Population (2001): 1,784

Santiago Dotor, 28 November 2001

As a plant pathologist, I would say that the choice of black erradicate trees is rather unfortunate. Elms are currently close to erradication in Europe because of a fungus (Ophiostoma ulmi, a.k.a. Ceratocystis ulmi), which causes the so-called Dutch elm disease. The fungus grows inside the tree vessels and finally kills it. The dead elm looks exactly like on the flag and must be cut down before it crashes down. The fungus can spread from tree to tree via the roots but its most important dispersal agent is a wood-inhabiting insect (scolyte). Elms have nearly disappeared from Britain and France. There is some progress in breeding new resistant clones, anyway.

Ivan Sache, 28 November 2001