Canary Islands

Canary Islands
Country	Spain
Flag of the Canary Islands
Designer	Carmen Sarmiento, Arturo Cantero Sarmiento and Jesus Cantero Sarmiento
Adopted	August 10, 1982
Institutional flag of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands
Wikipedia article
Flags of the World article

The Canary Islands (Spanish: Canarias), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish region, autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean.

Design

The flag is a vertical tricolour of three equal bands of white, blue, and yellow. The state flag includes the Coat of arms of the Canary Islands in the central band; the civil flag omits this.

Symbolism

It combined the blue and white colours of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Province of Canary Islands) with the blue and yellow colours of the province of Las Palmas. The two dogs represented on flag's seal centered on the flag are Perro de Presa Canarios, or Canary Catch Dogs, that were first bred on the Canary Islands by ranchers who use them to herd and protect their cattle.

History

The tricolour flag has its origins in the Canarias Libre movement of the 1960s. It was designed by Carmen Sarmiento and her sons Arturo and Jesus Cantero Sarmiento, and first displayed (in paper form) on 8 September 1961. The modern designs were made official by the Statute of Autonomy of the Canarian Autonomous Community (Organic Law 10/82) on 1st August 1982.

Historical flags

Banner of Kingdom of the Canary Islands under Jean de Béthencourt (1404-1448)

First Spanish cavalry standard (1638) on the Canary Islands

Flag of the Maritime Province of the Canary Islands (1927, former province formed by the Canary Islands) which is based on the current flag of Tenerife.

The MIC, established in the 1950s, used a flag based on the maritime registration flags of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (blue with a white saltire) and and of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (diagonally divided blue-yellow).

Flag based on the maritime registration flags, including seven red stars (used scarcely only around the 1950 and 1960 decades)

Pre-autonomous official flag of the Canary Islands, 1961.

Autonomous flag of the Canary Islands approved and used in 1982 until 2005.

Autonomous flag of the Canary Islands (with the coat of arms) approved and used in 1982 until 2005.

Variants

Horizontal Canary Islands flag, sometimes used erroniously in some local shops and places.

Flag Redesigns

Atheneum flag, 1907. Proposed by the first council for the islands, but never used.

Manuel Martín González proposal (1931)

Nicolás Estévanez y Murphy's proposal (1907)

Flag of MPAIAC (1964), independentist movement from the Canary Islands at that time.

Current flag used by independentist movements in the Canary Islands (2010).

Anti-independentist flag (2010) used by right-wing people against independentism in the Canary Islands.

Republic of Canaries (Awanyak n Teknara) flag, 2005. Currently used mainly to represent the Guanche aboriginal culture (pre-Columbian people of Berber origin) of the archipelago.

Flag proposal by Hans.

Flag proposal by Hans (v2)

Flag proposal by Hans (v3)

Flag proposal by Hans (v4)

Canary Islands flag redesign