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Portuguese Civil Defense flags

National Council of Civil Defense

image by Jorge Candeias, 01 Mar 2001

Design of the flag
Localized versions

See also:

Portugal

Design of the flag

This winter in Portugal there have been lots of chances to spot on TV the civil defense flag. It’s a simple white logo-on-white-background type of flag, with the seal of the portuguese civil defense in the center: an orange circle, bordered white contains a blue triangle, also bordered white and is circled by a blue ring with a white and a narrow blue border and containing the words "PROTECÇÃO CIVIL / PORTUGAL" in white.
Jorge Candeias, 01 Mar 2001 and 02 Mar 2001

The symbol is more or less the same used by Civil Defense institutions all around the world; it is one of the Geneva Convention Protocol symbols.
António Martins, 07 Mar 2001

Localized versions

Information about the Portuguese Civil Defense system was further completed by João Cardigos, ex-mayor of the portuguese smallest municipality (Corvo, Azores): It consists of a number of local offices, organized at municipal level, integrating the departments that might be indispensable in an emergency and presided by the respective mayors. These Local Councils, as they are called, get sort of federated at regional level and then at national level.
Jorge Candeias, 08 Mar 2001

Specific version

I had noticed that my local municipal Civil Defense unit uses a similar flag but with the municipality name ("SESIMBRA") in lieu of "PORTUGAL". This implies the existence of municipal Civil Service flags along with a national one (and perhaps regional ones, where appliable?) — potentially 307 slightly different flags!
António Martins, 07 Mar 2001

The flag above is in fact that of the National Council of Civil Defense (Conselho Nacional de Protecção Civil) and there is indeed a potential for over 300 slightly different Civil Defense flags in Portugal, one for each municipality.
Jorge Candeias, 08 Mar 2001

Generic version

However, I saw several times a flag with the seal reading "PROTECÇÃO CIVIL / MUNICIPAL". So it seems that a number of municipal offices use this generic flag instead of the specific one. That makes things even more interesting for us flag-hunters: to determine which ones get generic, which ones get local… and, since we're at it, why…
Jorge Candeias, 08 Mar 2001