Last modified: 2006-02-05 by antonio martins
Keywords: albufeira | coat of arms (castle: red) | castle (red) | eagle (black) | head: moor | head: king | waves: 2 (green) | lagoon |
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It is a quite typical portuguese municipal flag, with the
coat of arms centered on a background gyronny (meaning
city rank) of yellow and red.
The coat of arms is argent, a castle gules, with door and windows
or, by a sea of three wavy fesses vert and argent, and under an eagle
sable between a christian king’s head, dexter, and a moorish king’s head,
sinister, both proper (from the traditional
Algarve arms). Mural crown argent with five visible towers
(city rank) and white scroll reading in
black upper case letters "CIDADE DE ALBUFEIRA".
António Martins, 19 Jul 1999
Albufeira municipality had 21 730 inhabitants in 1990, and it is
divided in 3 communes, covering 140 km2. It belongs to the
Faro District and to the old province of
Algarve.
The name "Albufeira" is of arabic origin and means in portuguese reservoir
(or sometimes lagoon). No trace of this at the coat of arms though, which
bear the usual algarvian symbols (the heads).
Ths castle stands for the local castle, the sea fo the sea and the eagle for
something that I don’t know.
António Martins, 19 Jul 1999
In Spanish, "albufera" means a seaby lagoon which fills and
empties with the tides through a narrow sea outlet (and that is the
original Arabic meaning, as far as I know).
Santiago Dotor, 20 Jul 1999
That’s one meaning of the word in portuguese too. Is there such an arabic
word as "buhera" or something similar?
Jorge Candeias, 21 Jul 1999
"Bukheira" = "small sea" = "lake"; could be also "lagoon" — from
"Bakh’r" = "Sea". (Or it could be something connected with trained
falcons…)
Dov Gutterman, 21 Jul 1999
When Algarve was part of the arabic empire, in that place existed a
very small swampy lagoon/estuary. Even if today the city spreads along the
cliffs by the sea (and having parts of it in danger of meeting the sea from
a shorter distance than desirable, if you know what I mean), it’s original
settlement followed the valley of a small creek. So, the coat
of arms of Albufeira remains enigmatic…
Jorge Candeias, 24 Jul 1999
