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Parishes (Andorra)

Parròquias

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CIA World Factbook: Andorra

Introduction

The first level administrative-territorial divisions in Andorra are parishes, but the local governments are communes. At present, parishes and communes are sharing exactly same territories, but that was not always like that. Flags and emblems we know belong to the communes, not to the parishes.

Valentin Poposki, 12 July 2025

"Each parish has its own elected mayor who is the nominal head of the local government known as a comú in Catalan." (article in English Wikipedia)
"The parishes of Andorra are the first and last administrative instances below the Government of Andorra. Parish is the term used to designate each of the seven territories into which the Principality of Andorra is administratively divided. This type of administrative division is the traditional one in Andorra. The equivalent in other countries is the term municipio (parish) and ajuntament (municipality). The parish is a grouping of a set of population centers, with an administrative capital that gives it its name. Some parishes have smaller territorial circumscriptions. For example, Ordino, La Massana and Sant Juli de Lòria are divided into quarters
and the parish of Canillo is distributed into neighborhoods. The function of the parishes is both ecclesiastical and civil. Regarding the civil function, the civil jurisdiction is called the comú and the Council of the comú is elected by universal suffrage every four years and is composed of the major consul, the minor consul and 8 to 14 communal councilors." (article in Catalan Wikipedia)

Olivier Touzeau, 13 July 2025

Typology of the local flags in Andorra

All communes have their own flags that are consisting of their logos or emblems on a white field. You can see them here: photo, 2023.

Valentin Poposki, 12 July 2025

Non-existent Blue/Yellow/Red local flags

Only for Andora-la-Velha there is one photo of a possible Blue/Yellow/Red flag, but no other evidence ever reported, and no flag of this kind was ever photographed for the other communes and parishes. Blue/Yellow/Red flags with local emblems should be reported as hypothetical.

Olivier Touzeau, 13 July 2025

Editor's Note: The B/Y/R flags were induced ans drawn in the context of the following conversation, which has since been found to contain erroneous conclusions.

In a tourist prospectus about Andorra, I saw a picture showing a conference room, shot from the last rows, with a flag on the stage. The flag was a blue-yellow-red tricolour, but the coat-of-arms had a blue field with something white around [a cartouche?] and undistinguishable charges, perhaps green-coloured. Unfortunately, the flag in the picture was too small to get any more details than this. Here is a scan. Maybe this is an Andorran subnational flag?

Jorge Candeias, 16 Apr 2002

Richard Foster's message [stating that the supposedly mistaken Andorran arms with blue cows on a green field is actually the arms of Canillo parish] seems to suggest that if parish flags do exist, then they are Andorran flags with the parish coat-of-arms in the place of the Andorran one, which is consistent with previous observations.

Jorge Candeias, 12 Sep 2002

Well guessed, Jorge – but Canillo appears not to have a coat of arms, at least according to Ralf Hartemink's website. Where did Richard get the impression that the blue cows on a green field was the arms of the parish of Canillo?

Santiago Dotor, 05 Jan 2006

Andorra is divided in seven parishes, and each of these has an emblem (without graphical homogenity, alas!). There is thin evidence that those emblems on a national flag background (blue, yellow, and red vertical tricolor) are maybe used as parish flags.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 26 Jul 2009

Well, that's a bit too thin in my not so humble opinion. Even if we would accept the possibility of a flag of this pattern for Andorra la Vella, that wouldn't mean that all the other parishes would use the same pattern. So, without further evidence, I call these images by Antonio pure speculation.
A quick (and certainly not comprehensive) image search done by me did not turn up any Andorran municipal flags used in a few of the expected contexts, only the national flag. Town halls: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; municipal council sessions (or other official occasions): 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; mayors: 13, 14, 15.
BTW, a few of the photographs of municipal councils show photos of the two heads-of-state of Andorra in the background: the French president (with the French and EU flag) and the bishop of Urgell (with the Andorran flag), e.g. here.

M. Schmöger, 27 Jul 2009

When the Tour de France passed through Andorra, I noticed several flags beside the road which looked like "variations on a theme" of the Andorran national flag, but with so many flags on the tour which could be reported and such fleeting views of most of them I didn't think to take down notes. I'm not saying they were parish flags, they may well have simply been hand-made or poorly-made national Andorran flags seen too quickly to know what was on the central stripe.

James Dignan, 28 Jul 2009

Concerning these flag designs, and apart from what was already pointed out by Marcus – that there is scarce and unclear evidence for one of them and that the conjecture that other six like it may exist is not supported by observations – I should mention that when I made these images I overlooked the fact that the Andorran flag has a wider central stripe, and thus these images should match that spec of 7+8+7.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 31 Jul 2009