Last modified: 2026-10-31 by rob raeside
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image by António Martins-Tuválkin,
3 April 2026
image based on
http://www.mapiripan-meta.gov.co
See also:
The flag of Mapiripán is basically a South Sudan style
unequal horizontally striped flag with a hoist triangle. The triangle is blue
and the main stripes are green, yellow, and red, with the gap stripes in white;
the shade of blue is usually dark and the shade of yellow, surprisingly, is
consistently of a pastel whitish tone (yielding against the adjoining white
areas even less contrast than regular yellow would).
António Martins-Tuválkin,
3 April 2026
images by António Martins-Tuválkin,
3 April 2026
The identified variants vary according to the overall ratio, either 2:3 or
1:2, and to the presence or absence of the municipal emblem on the yellow
stripe, centered horizontally on the middle of the flag's total width. In the
versions without the emblem, the triangle extends to the geometric center of the
flag cloth, and less so in those with the emblem, avoiding overlapping it.
The base of the triangle is unusually not coincident with the whole of the
hoist side of the flag, its angles being instead located approx. on the midpoint
of the green and red stripes – though only so in the 1:2 versions of the flag.
The 2:3 versions seem to have the same geometry as the 1:2 ones, but cropped at
the sides, yielding a triangle with the same three angles but smaller area and
sides. This is, I think, a unique way of constructing flags with hoist
triangles, and also a unique way of creating flag variants with different ratios
given an identical archivexillum.
The first image above is based on
https://youtu.be/wq6nbWtsKIE and
http://www.mapiripan-meta.gov.co/noticias/celebramos-nuestra-independencia.
Seen in an official municipal facility, indoors: Behind the mayor the three
flags of, from his right hand side, Colombia (with motto, but non-tilted
emblem), Meta Department (maybe plain?), and Mapiripán Municipality. These three
flags are obscured as framed, and it's hard to compare them with no sight of the
extension of their diagonals nor of the height of their hoists, so it's hard to
say which ratios are being used here. The second image is from the same unclear
source.
The third variant is a 1:2 version without emblem, based on
http://www.mapiripan-meta.gov.co/municipio/nuestro-municipio and
https://mapiripanmeta.micolombiadigital.gov.co. This extremely poor
rendering of the flag, itself a low quality scan of a low quality print of a
hand drawn image of the flag in fluttering stance allows however to know that
this has 1:2 ratio.
António Martins-Tuválkin,
3 April 2026
metma.jpg)
.gif)
image by António Martins-Tuválkin,
3 April 2026
The central motif of the emblem, redrawn from
https://mapiripanmeta.micolombiadigital.gov.co, the official municipal
website.
The whole of the emblem as shown on the flag (or on some of the
flags) is seal-like with an additional wreath of green-outlined white branches,
one at each side (crossing asymmetrically at the 5 o'clock position in what may
be a graphical mishap of this one depiction), encircling the lower half of
the seal's circumference. When placed on the flag, the base of this whole device is very close to the bottom
edge of the yellow stripe and its upper part reaches well into the upper
white stripe (the seal's diameter is roughly the same as the height of the
yellow stripe itself), the whole looking visibly off-centered upwards.
The seal's rim is white, edged thickly in black in its outer and inner edges,
and reads in bold serif capitals "Mapiripan" arched above and
"Selva - Sabana - Leyenda" arched below; this inscription is, I presume, a
local motto and means Jungle - Scrubland - Legend.
The inside of the seal
is filled in light green (a shade lighter and somewhat yellower than that of
the leaves and of the flag's top stripe) and bears an emblem divided in four
quadrants by a transparent (light green) cross-shape gap, with an 8-fold
lobate contour, oriented so that each quadrant is limited by one full lobe
and two halves on either side, and the whole of it markedly asymmetric. These four quadrants are each filled
with a different scene, drawn in naive/crude style(s) and including disparate
clipart:
At the upper hoist, a whitish plain with blue river and red sun
setting/rising on a orange/amber gradient sky;
at the upper fly, a
yellowish plain with bluffs and green palm trees in the horizon under a very
pale blue sky;
at the lower hoist, a pink dolphin leaping out splashing
white water against a light blue sky; and
at the lower right, on a
light olive ground a horse rider and a head of cattle, in variant shades of
brown/white high-contrast, under a sky identical to the one at the upper
hoist.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 3 April 2026
