Ansião Municipality (Portugal)

Last modified: 2006-02-05 by antonio martins
Keywords: ansião | coat of arms (annulet) | ring (yellow) | pomgrenate |
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• About the flag
• Version without the coat of arms
• Variation with assymetrical ring
• Presentation of Ansião

• Municipalities of Portugal
• Portugal

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

About the flag

It’s flag is a typical town municipal flag: quarterly divided white over purple with a typical coat of arms in the centre. The coat of arms has a typical 4-towered mural crown and a typical scroll reading "VILA DE ANSIÃO" and a shield.
Jorge Candeias, 03 Jul 1998

Quote from the official journal (Diário do Governo), no. 187, Ist series, 1935.08.14. Government decree (portaria) no. 8200 (about the flag and arms of Ansião Municipality):

Flag - Quartered of white and purple. Cords and tassels of white and purple. Golden pole and spearhead.
Arms - Sable, a ring or, cornered with four grenates open purple and leaved vert. Mural crown of four towers, silver. White scroll with the inscription: "Vila de Ansião", sable.

I don’t have a solid base to guess the meaning of the charges. I only have the vague idea that the ring may have some cabalistic meaning, and the flowers may eventually symbolize the agricultural production of the area. This is purely speculative.
Jorge Candeias, 03 Jul 1998

Version without the coat of arms

Variation with assymetrical ring

Most sources show this ring slightly assymetrical, as if made by the intersection of two non concentric circles. I always thought that the "off-centeredness" was a typography error: My postcard shows it also like that, but since the official description doesn’t mention it, I would say it is really an error, maybe an old and many times copied error…
António Martins, 09 Dec 1999 and 06 Jul 1998

Presentation of Ansião

Ansião is a town located in the north of the district of Leiria, old province and region-to-be of Beira Litoral. The municipality occupies an area of 175 km² and has a population of 18 000 people distributed in 8 communes. I know very little on this municipality, but by it’s placement in the map and some economical and demographic indicators I have, I’d say it’s a rural municipality with an economy based in agriculture.
Jorge Candeias, 03 Jul 1998