Mafra Municipality (Portugal)

Concelho de Mafra, Distrito de Lisboa

Last modified: 2014-10-18 by klaus-michael schneider
Keywords: mafra | tower(golden) | crescent(silver) | cross(avis) |
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• About the Flag
• Version without Coat of Arms
• Presentation of Mafra

• Mafra Communes
• Portugal

• Page about Mafra at the Portuguese Municipalities’s Association website (incl. image of the arms)
  reported by António Martins, 18 Nov 2001

About the Flag

It is a fairly typical Portuguese municipal flag, with the coat of arms centred on a yellow field.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 14 Dec 2003

The coat of arms is gules between two crescents upwards argent on a tower or with port and windows gules, charged with a cross fleury vert . Mural crown argent with four visible towers (town rank) and white scroll reading "VILA DE MAFRA" in black upper case letters.
Meaning:
Mafra is well known for its huge 16th century monastery, key element for Literature Nobel laureate Saramago’s novel Memorial do Convento, and for the somewhat related giant albino cave-dwelling and flesh-eating blind rats — none of which show in the arms… These refer rather to the local importance of the Avis Order and to its Moorish past.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 14 Dec 2003

Flag and arms adopted and published in Diário do Governo : I Série on 18 November 1940
Sérgio Horta, 14 Dec 2003

Version without Coat of Arms

Plain (monocoloured) Portuguese subnational flags are not allowed to have variations without arms: plain flags always carry the coat of arms.
Jorge Candeias, 18 July 1999

Presentation of Mafra

Mafra Municipality had 55 082 inhabitants in 2000 (43 880 in 1990), and it is divided in 11 communes, covering 291 km². It belongs to the District of Lisboa, to the old province Estremadura and to the would-be region Lisboa e Setúbal.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 14 Dec 2003

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