Last modified: 2026-02-28 by antónio martins
Keywords: são vicente | sansent | saint vincent | gyronny: 8 (blue white) | stars: 10 (yellow) | chain (green) | chain: 4 links | sunrise | anchor (red) | waves | scroll (yellow) | município de são vicente |
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![[flag]](../images/c/cv-21.gif)
image by António Martins, 12 Dec 2025 |
(source)
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São Vicente municipality covers in full the eponymous island (in
English: St. Vincent Island — in Cabo Verde, eastern Atlantic, not to be
confused with St. Vincent Island in the Caribbean);
it includes also the uninhabited St. Lucy Island and a
few uninhabited islets, to the east.
António Martins, 24 Apr 2017
Saint Lucy and the islets to its east were once part of the
Saint Nicholas municipality, according to the
map in Sérgio
Horta’s website. The change likely occurred soon after independence in
1975.
António Martins, 12 Dec 2025
The former incarnation of the current municipality was named after its
capital, Mindelo city: Mindelo / São Vicente municipality have had three
city emblems: Colonial,
post-independence, and current.
Along with these, two or three flags existed.
António Martins, 24 Apr 2017
The emblem is used on a blue and white flag, gyronny
of eight in Portuguese style, divided along
diagonals and apothemas
(photo
of official use: 2015.06.16
mayoral interview
given to the
national
television).
This background for a caboverdean municipal flag is
uncommon; maybe it is a reminiscence of the colonial flag.
António Martins, 25 Apr 2017
Among the three (out of 22) 8-fold gyronny municipal flags in Cape Verde, one
other, Maio, is also blue over white.
António Martins, 28 Dec 2025
While the gyronny background resembles the colonial-era
municipal flag, the latter was white over green instead of blue
over white.
António Martins, 12 Dec 2025
It’s my opinion that this flag should be idealized as dark blue, not
medium blue, matching how it shows usually in situ, contrasted to the
national flag and other municipal
flags.
António Martins, 12 Dec 2025
![[emblem]](../images/c/cv-21).gif)
image by António Martins, 12 Dec 2025 |
(source)
More recently (after 2004; when exactly?) a new
emblem was adopted and it inherits the maritime topics of the
previous two: Just like most current
caboverdean municipal emblems, it has a round shield
surrounded on the top half by a ring of ten yellow stars interrupted at the
middle by a chain of four green links and with a scroll along the bottom.
The circular shield (double edged in blue and white) is Celeste (light
blue) with a base Azure wavy of four charged at dexter with a helmwheel
Tenny/Orangy (orange, contrasting with both golden/yellow and with red)
and at sinister with an anchor counterbendwise Gules and issuant from
this base a mountain Tawny/Brown at dexter and issuant also from the
mountain a dimidiated cogwheel Or and in chief a bird volant Proper
holding a book (?) Argent written Sable. (Some images of this emblem:
[1]
[2]
[3].)
António Martins, 25 Apr 2017
This is not the only one among the 22 municipal emblems of Cabo Verde to
show musical symbols, the others being São Domingos and
Brava.
António Martins, 16 Dec 2025
After independence in 1974-1975, the colonial
coat-of-arms and its flag fell out of use and there’s
information of a city emblem (= municipal emblem?) that includes
1975-1992 Caboverdean emblematics; this was
reported
and depicted by Wikimedia user:Waldir, adding that it went out of use
in 2004: This emblem includes some elements of the
contemporary national emblem, namely the
black star on red, the scallop at the bottom, and (half) a wreath of maize,
and adds blue sea, a fish, an anchor, and a section of a cogwheel. I
don’t know whether this emblem was use on a flag.
António Martins, 25 Apr 2017
![[flag]](../images/c/cv-21_h.gif)
image by Sérgio Horta and António Martins, 13 Dec 2025 |
(source)
As quoted by Sérgio
Horta, the flag was gyronny of white over green.
António Martins, 23 Oct 2025
![[flag]](../images/p/pt-'wv8.gif)
image by António Martins, 28 Feb 2010
Non-monocolored portuguese subnational flags are
allowed to have armless variations.
Jorge Candeias, 18 Jul 1999
While the current law, adopted in 1991,
doesn’t apply to municipal flags in the colonies, independent in 1975, it
however draws most of its content from the 1930 ministerial dispatch, incl.
the regulation of armless variations allowed for non-monocolor municipal flags.
This 1930 ruling affected all future Portuguese municipal flags, including the
colonial ones.
António Martins, Feb 2026
![[flag]](../images/c/cv-21_h).gif)
image by Sérgio Horta and António Martins, 13 Dec 2025 |
(source)
A colonial era flag existed, along with the well known coat of arms, published i.a. in a collection of 1961 Portuguese postage stamps (example facsimiles: [1] [2] [3]). It is
The scroll text reading the more usual toponym ("Cidade do Mindelo")
instead of a literary quote seems to be the official, or later, version —
see Sérgio
Horta’s website. It is unclear whether flags already existed when the
Latin motto was replaced.
António Martins, 23 Oct 2025
Anything below this line was not added by the editor of this page.
