^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Cogolin (Municipality, Var, France)

Flag of Cogolin - Image by Ivan Sache, 7 April 2018

Presentation of Cogolin
Flag of Cogolin
- Former flag of Cogolin
Yacht Club des Marines de Cogolin

See also:

Presentation of Cogolin

The municipality of Cogolin (12,387 inhabitants in 2015, 2,793 ha; tourism website) is located at the end of the Gulf of Saint-Tropez.

Gassin and Grimaud on a hill standing back from the seashore, which was then unhealthy (malaria) and threatened by the Saracens. The Proven&ccediil;al word cougouyoun means "a hill with a rounded top".
The local legend, however, says that a small boat, carrying the body of Knight Torpes watched by a rooster and a dog, landed in the end of the gulf of Saint-Tropez. The rooster flew away and settled in a flax field. The village built there was named coq au lin (Rooster "by" Flax). The dog walked to the village of Grimaud.
The old village is grouped around the Sts. Sauveur and Étienne church (with two naves and therefore two patron saints), built in the beginning of the 11th century and totally revamped in the 16th century (northern gate made of serpentine, 1546). The village was protected by walls, from which only the Clock Tower has been preserved until now. Until 1939, the Tower had a clock and a bell (1535), now placed in the church.
The first lord of Cogolin was Henri de Cuers, who acquired half of the domain of Cogolin for 3,000 crowns, according to the bill of sale kept in the Archives of the Deparment of Var. The other co-owner of the domain was the Order of Malta. Henri's son, Jacques de Cuers, chief of a naval squad under Louis XIV, succeeded his father and purchased the castle. The Sellier family later bought the castle. Restored in the 1960s and sold to the municipality in 1982, the castle houses the Municipal Museum.

During the Second World War, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (1889-1952) set up his headquarters in Cogolin from 17 to 20 August 1944. After the Liberation, Lattre was granted the honour citizenship by the municipality. When told that the other honour citizen in Cogolin was the statesman Georges Clémenceau (1841-1929), Lattre pointed out that the two of them were born in the same small village in Vendée, Mouilleron-en-Pareds.

Reed grows profusely on the shore of the Gulf of Saint-Tropez. In the 19 century, the Florentine Prestini opened in Cogolin a workshop producing reeds for wind instruments, considering the local reeds as the most appropriate. The Rigotti factory (website) was granted in 2015 the label "Living Heritage Company".
Established in Cogolin in 1802 by Ulysse Courrieu, the Ch. Courrieu factory (website), also a "Living Heritage Company", producs the famous Cogolin tobacco pipes, made of stocks of heather collected in the neighboring Maures.

Ivan Sache, 19 April 2004

Flag of Cogolin

Cogolin flies at the big traffic circles located at the entrances of the town a white flag with the town's emblem, which features a rooster and a flax plant recalling the popular etymology of the town's name.
"TERRE MER" reads "Land Sea".

Ivan Sache, 7 April 2004

Former flag of Cogolin

Former flag and gonfanon of Cogolin - Images by Arnaud Leroy, 19 April 2004

The former flag of Cogolin, used either horizontyally ar as a forked gonfanon, is blue with the municipal emblem, made of a lighter blue shield charged with the municipal coat of arms ordered in white and surmounted by the name of the municipality in white capital letters, the shield surmounted by a yellow mural crown.

The coat of arms of Cogolin featured on the flag is "Per fess, 1. Azure a rooster gules within a disc or on a base vert, 2. Argent a tree vert on a base brunâtre".
De Bresc [bjs94] shows a quite different coat of arms, "Per pale, 1. Azure a rooster or on a base vert, 2. Argent a flax plant vert flowered purpure on a base sable".
The coat of arms refers to the popular etymology of the town's name. The rooster, also engraved on the Courrieu pipes, is considered as the "official" emblem of the Cogolin.

Arnaud Leroy & Ivan Sache, 19 April 2004

Yacht Club des Marines de Cogolin

Burgee of YCMC - Image by Ivan Sache, 7 April 2018

Les Marines de Cogolin (website) is a marina, including a private port (Galiote, Brigantine and Cascadelle basins), a public port (Port d'Escale basin) and five blocks of dwellings (Galiote, Brigantine and Cascadelle, adjacent to the eponymous basins; Deux Voiles; Villas sur la Giscle). Built from 1968 to 1980, the marina is managed by the Société Anonyme du Port de Plaisance Les Marines de Cogolin, incorporated on 29 June 1964.
Les Marines de Cogolin, located only 3 km of Saint-Tropez, is the largest yachting port on the French Riviera (1,600 moorings); it forms an "inner sea" protected by a wharf (600 m) and a counter-wharf (400 m). Access to the sea is supplied by a channel of 85 m in width.

Yacht Club des Marines de Cogolin (YCMC; website) groups the owners of boats moored in the marina.
The burgee of YCMC is blue with a white half-disc charged with a red wind-rose, the white letters "YCMC" placed vertically along the hoist and "Marines de Cogolin" placed horizontally in the center of the flag.

Ivan Sache, 7 April 2018