Flag of Chile

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Flag of Chile
Flag of Chile.svg
Vexillological symbol : National flag on land and at sea?
Aspect ratio: 2: 3
Officially accepted: October 18, 1817

The flag of Chile was introduced as the national flag on October 18, 1817.

meaning

Structure of the flag

The blue field is a square , the side of which is one-third the length or half the height of the flag. The white star is a centrally positioned in this square, with the tip pointing upwards oriented pentagram whose circumscribed circle diameter equal to half the side length of the square.

Blue stands for the sky and the Pacific Ocean , white for the snow of the Andes, and red for the red Copihue flower or the blood of the heroes of the War of Independence . The white star symbolizes freedom. Its five points also stand for the five first provinces of Chile .

In the horizontal and vertical alignment of the flag, care must always be taken to position the star at the top left.

history

Horseman with the national flag of Chile

In the verse novel La Araucana (part I printed in Madrid , 1569), understood as the Chilean national epic, reports on an army of the Araucans (native Mapuche Indians ), whose warriors adorned themselves with green, blue, white and "flesh-red" feathers.

The first flag, that of the patria vieja (old fatherland), was a horizontal tricolor in blue-white-orange designed by José Miguel Carrera in 1812 , which was first hoisted on September 18, 1812 in Santiago de Chile . It was used until the Battle of Rancagua , when the patriots were defeated by the royalists. The country fell again under the rule of the colonial rulers until they were defeated in the Battle of Chacabuco and Chile again declared its independence. The new flag, that of the "Transitional Period " ( Transición ), was designed by Juan Gregorio de Las Heras and used from April 1817. However, the horizontal tricolor in blue, white and red was confusingly similar to the flag of the Netherlands . Only a few months later the current flag was introduced. The concept came from the North American Charles Wood (1792-1856) and was developed in the headquarters of the Argentine freedom fighter José de San Martín . She made a conscious reference to the flag of the United States . On the initiative of the Chilean Minister of War José Ignacio Zenteno (1786–1847) it was declared the national flag of Chile on October 18, 1817. On February 12, 1818, the state emblem with a column and two crossed flags was added to the flag. This flag was still used during the War of Independence, which only ended in Chile with the expulsion of the Spanish intervention troops in April 1818 after the Battle of Maipú and the final conquest of Chiloé in January 1826. Over the years there have been different variants, with the star being sometimes missing or appearing elsewhere, sometimes the colors of the stripes were swapped, and the blue field was not always square, but sometimes rectangular. The shape and the colors of the fields were finally determined on July 4, 1854, the exact position of the star in the blue field was confirmed again on January 11, 1912 (Law No. 2597). A separate law on the use of national symbols, including the national flag, was passed on the 150th anniversary of the flag's introduction on October 18, 1967.

  • Historic flag? Flag of Chile ( patria vieja ), September 18, 1812 to 1814.

  • Historic flag? Flag of Chile ( transición ), April 1817 to September 1817

  • Reconstruction based on written sources only? Flag of Chile ( patria nueva ), 1818

In 1820 José de San Martín moved north with an army to liberate Peru from Spanish colonial rule. The Expedición Libertadora al Perú carried a version similar to the Chilean flag, the three stars of which stood for the origin of the soldiers: Chile, Argentina and Peru.

On the de facto independent Indian territory in southern Chile and parts of what is now Argentina, the French Orélie Antoine de Tounens tried several times in vain in the 1860s and 1870s to establish a " Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia " to prevent the Indians from being conquered by Chile and Argentina one. Tounens introduced a horizontal tricolor in green, blue and white as a symbol of identification. The order of the colors is different depending on the source, and different versions may have existed.

  • Historic flagVariation of a flag based on the same basic pattern? Version with a white star in a red stripe

  • Historic flagVariation of a flag based on the same basic pattern? Version with swapped stripes

  • Historic flag? “Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia”, 1860

  • Normal or de jure version of a flag? Photo of the flag of Chile from 1907

Flags of the indigenous people

The flag of Easter Island ( Reimiro ) is used by the original Rapanui population , alongside the flag of Chile on official occasions. In 1992 the Mapuche adopted their own flag. There are also flags of various other peoples.

More flags of Chile

In addition to the regions and municipalities, universities and political parties also fly their own flags. Here are a few examples.

literature

Web links

Commons : Flags of Chile  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Karl-Heinz Hesmer: Flags and coats of arms of the world. With current country information. Wissen Media Verlag, Gütersloh 2008, ISBN 978-3-577-14537-4 , p. 46 f. in Google Book Search.
  2. ↑ Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga : La Araucana. Part I, IX. Singing, verse 51, verse h.
  3. ↑ Presidential Decree No. 1534 of October 18, 1967 on the use of national symbols .