Last modified: 2017-04-16 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/e/es-gr-bv.gif)
Flag of Benalúa de las Villas - Image from the Símbolos de Granada website, 17 May 2014
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The municipality of Benalúa de las Villas (1,461 inhabitants in 2008; 2,100 ha; municipal website) is located 35 km north of Granada.
Benalúa de las Villas, located between Granada and Jaén, was a strategic place during the Moorish times; reconquerred by the Christians in 1486, it was the place of several skirmishes until the eventual suppression of the Kingdom of Granada in 1492. Granted the title ofvilla, Benalúa was transfered to Commander Fernán Sancho del Cañaveral, who founded the Municipality of Benalúa, subsequently upgraded to a County.
The most famous Count of Benalúa was Julio Quesada Cañaveral y Piédrola, Duke of San Pedro Galatino (1858-1936), a politician (Senator, 1901-1904) and industrial. Pioneer of sugar industry in Andalusia, the Duke invented tourism in Granada in the late 19th Ð early 20th century; he commissioned the engineer Juan Santa Cruz to build modern hotels (Hotel Alhambra Palace, the first modern hotel in Granada, inaugurated by King Alfonso XIII; Hotel del Duque, the first modern hotel in the Sierra Nevada), the Sierra Nevada causeway (for long the highest paved road in Europe) and the Sierra Nevada tramline (linking Granada to Hotel del Duque).
Ivan Sache, 12 July 2009
The flag and arms of Benalúa de las Villas, adopted on 31 January 2006 by the Municipal Council and submitted on 3 February 2006 to the Directorate General of the Local Administration, are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 16 February 2006 by the Directorate General of the Local Administration and published on 9 March 2006 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 46, p. 40 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular flag, in proportions 2:3, made of four horizontal stripes, the two upper serrated by four triangles, in proportions 1/2, 2/9, 1/18 and 2/9, the upper white with three green uprooted olive trees and the other red, white and blue.
Coat of arms: Argent an olive tree eradicated vert surrounded by two arrows gules. The chief serrated vert. The base per fess wavy azure. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.
On the flag, the olive trees represent local agriculture. The serration represents the local topography, especially the Montes Orientales. The blue stripe represents river de Las Juntas, which waters the municipality and flows into the marshes of Colomera.
[Ideal Digital, 11 March 2006]
The chief of the arms, in the colours of Andalusia, represents the border location of the municipality. The arrows evoke the town's patron saint, St. Sebastian.
[Símbolos de las Entidades Locales de Andalucía. Granada (PDF file)]
Ivan Sache, 11 July 2009