^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Guayanilla (Puerto Rico)

by Thanh-Tam Le , 12 Febuary 2000

Overview
Coat of Arms

See also:

Other Sites:

www.prtc.net

Overview

This city of 21,996 inhabitantsit is in southwest Puerto Rico and was founded on February 27, 1833. The colours of the flag come from the CoA.
Thanh-Tâm Le, 12 January 1999

Guayanilla - The flag boasts the main shield colors. It is made of three horizontal stripes of equal width: white the upper one, yellow in the center, and green the lower one.
Blas Delgado, 14 April 2001

Coat of Arms

by Nelson L. Román, 9 July 2004

From <www.linktopr.com>:
"The Coat of Arms consists of a quartered shield. The first and fourth quarters contain in a green field a hermitage accompanied with two houses, one on each side of the hermitage, all in silver. The openings are highlighted in red. The hermitage of the first quarter is accompanied by a silver star with eight rays. The second and third quarters contain a silver field, with a green lion. The lion of the second quarter holds in its right hand a red flower. In the fourth, a lion holds in both hands a red arrow pointing up. In the center resides a small red shield with a five-pointed crown in gold. Below the small shield is located a blue anchor. At the top a three-tower crown in gold, outlined in black and the openings highlighted in green. The Coat Of Arms may be placed between two sugar cane stems, with its two green leaves crossed at the bottom and drawn in the conventional heraldic way.
The hermitage and the houses represent a primitive Christian town of Puerto Rico, specifically the one of Santa Maria de Guadianilla or San Germán el Nuevo, that were was established in the margins of the Guayanilla River, in the middle of the sixteenth century. The star symbolizes Our Lady; La Inmaculada Concepción, patron of the population, and the waved stripe, the river. The repetition of this subject, without the star, in the last quarter, alludes to the second foundation of Guayanilla, in 1833. The lion is taken, with alteration of its colors, from the shield of Ortíz de Almendralejo, Extremadura, a region where Don Rodrigo Ortíz Vélez came from, mayor and defender of Santa Maria de Guadianilla, and founder of San Germán de las Lomas de Santa Marta, a place where the primitive population was transferred during 1570. It represents, in addition, the value and the intrepidity whereupon Don Rodrigo and his men defended the town against two attacks and attempts of invasion: One by French Corsairs and another one by Caribbean Indians. The first victory is symbolized by the lily flower and the second by the arrow, which in this case represent the battles. The old crown, in the small red shield in the center, represents Cacique Agüeybaná, main monarch of the Tainos of Borinquen, whose yucayeque was located in the Guianía region, where today Guánica, Yauco and Guayanilla are located. The blue anchor in a gold field, symbolizes the beach and the port of Guayanilla. The crown is standard upon municipal shields and symbol of the unity that must characterize the inhabitants of a population or municipality united in its defense of its autonomy, conservation of its historical traditions and promotion of the communal well being. The sugar cane stems indicate that Guayanilla is located in a sugar cane zone and the importance that the sugar industry has had in the history of the town."
Nelson L. Román, 9 July 2004