Mafra Municipality (Portugal)

Last modified: 2006-09-30 by antónio martins
Keywords: mafra | vila de mafra | coat of arms: castle | tower | crescents: 2 | crescent: points up (white) | cross: avis |
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• About the flag
• Version without the coat of arms
• Presentation of Mafra

• Municipalities of Portugal
• Portugal

• Page about the municipal flag and coat of arms of Mafra at Sérgio Horta’s website (in Portuguese).
  reported by Jorge Candeias, 29 Feb 1999
• Page about Mafra at the Portuguese Municipalities’s Association website (incl. image 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 plain yellow background. The coat of arms is gules between two crescents upwards argent on a tower or litten and open of the field a cross fleury vert (Avis Order cross). Mural crown argent with four visible towers (town rank) and white scroll reading in black upper case letters "VILA DE MAFRA".
António Martins, 14 Dec 2003

Mafra is well known for its huge 16th century monastery, key element for Literature Nobel laureate Saramago’s novel Memorial do Convento, and for the somewhat related giant albino cave-dwelling and flesh-eating blind rats — none of which show in the arms… These refer rather to the local importance of the Avis Order and to its Moor past.
António Martins, 14 Dec 2003

Version without the coat of arms

Plain (monocolored) portuguese subnational flags are not allowed to have armless variations: plain flags always carry the coat of arms.
Jorge Candeias, 18 Jul 1999

Presentation of Mafra

Mafra municipality had 55 082 inhabitants in 2000 (43 880 in 1990), and it is divided in 17 communes, covering 291 km². It belongs to the District of Lisboa, to the old province Estremadura and to the would-be region Lisboa e Setúbal.
António Martins, 14 Dec 2003

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