Arraiolos Municipality (Portugal)

Concelho de Arraiolos, Distrito de Évora

Last modified: 2014-08-30 by klaus-michael schneider
Keywords: arraiolos | castle(white) | bees(3) | grapes(purple;2) | wave |
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• About the Flag
• Version without Coat of Arms
• Presentation of Arraiolos

• Arraiolos Communes
• Portugal

• Page about Arraiolos 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 fairly typical Portuguese municipal flag, with the coat of arms centred on a field quarterly (meaning town rank) of white and purple.
Jorge Candeias, 12 July 1999 and António Martins-Tuválkin, 6 Sep 2003

The coat of arms is sable a castle argent masoned sable with port and windows or between two grape bunches purpure leaved and fimbriated or, in chief three bees or set in fess, in base a fess wavy azure fimbriated argent. Mural crown argent with four visible towers (town rank) and white scroll reading in black upper case letters "VILA DE ARRAIOLOS";.
Meaning:
As usual, the arms revert to the fortifications of the town (the castle), the river (wavy lines) which is interesting because I couldn’t find any river near the town itself, rather 3 somewhat important creeks in the municipal territory (Vide, Divor and Tera), plus references to some products of the traditional agriculture: grapes and wine (the grapes) and honey (the bees). Interesting that the tapestry industry is not represented in the arms, since it is by far the main reason why Arraiolos is known. But then again, I guess it’s difficult to represent such a thing in a coat of arms.
Jorge Candeias, 12 July 1999 and António Martins-Tuválkin, 6 Sep 2003

Flag and arms were approved and published in Diário do Governo : I Série on 26 April 1938
Sérgio Horta, 6 Sep 2003

Version without Coat of Arms

Presentation of Arraiolos

Arraiolos municipality had 7672 inhabitants in 2000 (8080 in 1990), and it is divided in 5 communes, covering 684 km². It belongs to the Évora District, to the old province of Alto Alentejo and to the future region of Alentejo. It’s a rural municipality, but with an old and very well known industry of tapestry.
Jorge Candeias, 12 July 1999 and António Martins-Tuválkin, 6 Sep 2003

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