Aude (Department, France)

Last modified: 2016-02-14 by ivan sache
Keywords: aude |
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Flag of the Departmental Council of Aude - Image by Ivan Sache, 12 July 2015

• Administrative data
• Flag of the Departmental Council
• Flag of the formerGeneral Council
• Municipal flags
  • Carcassonne
  • Narbonne
• Yacht clubs

See also:

• France
• France: Metropolitan departments
• Clickable map of France (departments)

Administrative data

Code: 11
Region: Languedoc-Roussillon
Traditional provinces: Languedoc, Comté de Foix
Bordering departments: Ariège, Haute-Garonne, Hérault, Pyrénées-Orientales, Tarn

Area: 6,139 km²
Population (2009): 350,198 inhabitants

Préfecture: Carcassonne
Sous-préfectures: Limoux, Narbonne
Subdivisions: 3 arrondissements, 35 cantons, 438 communes.

The department is named after river Aude (220 km), tributary of Mediterranean Sea.

Ivan Sache, 11 November 2009

Flag of the Departmental Council

The flag hoisted in front of the Departmental Council (website) in Carcassonne was changed to reflect the change in the emblem of the Departmental Council. The change in the name of the local assembly from General Council to Departmental Council made the emblem obsolete.
The updated emblem kept the design of the former one, swapping the orange and blue colours - which makes the yellow Cross of Toulouse on the orange background hardly visible, and shifting the writing "Aude / Le département", now in white letters, on a blue rectangle placed right of the "A" symbol.

The updated flag (photo, La Dépêche du Midi, 21 April 2015) is white with a square emblem derived from the official emblem, the "A" being placed on a plain orange background and the blue rectangle with the white lettering being placed beneath the orange panel.

Ivan Sache, 12 July 2015

Flag of the former General Council

Flag of the former General Council of Aude - Image by Ivan Sache, 24 September 2009

The flag of the former General Council of Aude (photo), hoisted in front of the building of the General Council (Carcassonne), was white with the logo of the General Council, "CONSEIL GENERAL" being omitted.

The logo of the General Council of Aude was vertically divided blue- orange (c. 1:2) with a white "A" in the middle and an orange, filled Cross of Toulouse in canton. "AUDE" is written in black letters below.
The Cross of Toulouse recalls that the current territory of Aude, especially its southern part, was a Cathar stronghold during the Albigensian Crusade and the place of the "Castles' War". Among the "Cathar Castles" located today in Aude - mostly ruined - are Puivert and Termes, seized in 1210, Peyrepertuse, seized in 1240, and Quéribus, the last Cathar fortress, seized in 1255. The last known Cathar "parfait" (~ saint), Guilhem Bélibaste, was burned at the stake in Villerouge-Termenès in 1321.

Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 24 September 2009