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Torremejía (Municipality, Extremadura, Spain)

Flag of Torremejía - Image by Ivan Sache, 16 March 2020

Presentation of Torremejía
Flag of Torremejía
Former flag of Torremejía

See also:

Presentation of Torremejía

The municipality of Torremejía (2,270 inhabitants in 2017; 2,430 ha; municipal website) is located 75 km west of Badajoz and 20 km south of Mérida.

Torremejía is named for a tower (torre) erected by a lord named Mejía. According to Mérida-born Bemabé Moreno de Vargas, the tower watched the Silver Road, which was scoured by rascals who attacked the travelers and then took shelter in the neighboring mountains.
The identity of the builder of the tower is still a matter of conjecture. Pascual Madoz claims that the tower was erected by Diego García Torres y Mejía after he had been granted the area in 1480. Not supported by any evidence and most probably erroneously offered by the parish priest, the theory was spread by several sources, the Gran Enciclopedia Extremeña and the Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada included. The latter source presents an alternative, spurious hypothesis: the tower would have been named Torre Maciza (Big Tower) or Torre con Mojinetes (Tower with a Frontispiece), written Torre de los Mojicones in other sources.<
In Partidos triunfantes de la Beturía Túrdula, Friar Juan Mateo Reyes Ortiz de Tovar writes that Torremejía was actually founded in the 1370s by Gonzalo Mejía, 21st Master of the Order of Saint James from 1369 to 1371, according to the Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España. Other sources mention the Mexía lineage, from Mérida, as builder of the tower. The aforementioned Diego García Torres y Mejía was most probably a descendant of the builder, who restored the tower.

The writer Camilio José Cela (1916-2002; Nobel Prize in Literature 1989) was awarded in May 1982 the title of Torremejía's Adoptive Sun. His most famous novel, La familia de Pascual Duarte (1942), takes place in an unnamed village modeled on Torremejía.
[El País, 31 May 1982]

Ivan Sache, 16 March 2020

Flag of Torremejía

The flag of Torremejía, adopted on 19 November 2002 by the Municipal Council and validated on 6 February 2003 by the Assessing Council of Honors and Distinctions of the Government of Extremadura, is prescribed by an Order adopted on 10 February 2003 by the Government of Extremadura and published on 22 February 2003 in the official gazette of Extremadura, No. 23, pp. 2,388-2,389 (text).
The flag is described as follows:

Flag: Rectangular flag, in proportions 2:3. Vertically divided, the first third at hoist, blue, the two thirds at fly, horizontally divided in seven stripes, four yellow and three blue.

The coat of arms of Torremejía, adopted on 2 July 2001 by the Municipal Council and validated on 29 April 2002 by the Assessing Council of Honors and Distinctions of the Government of Extremadura, is prescribed by an Order adopted on 13 January 2003 by the Government of Extremadura and published on 11 February 2003 in the official gazette of Extremadura, No. 18, pp. 1,869-1,870 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:

Coat of arms: Per pale, 1. Azure a tower argent masoned sable port and windows gules on a fess argent, 2. Or three fesses azure (Mexía). The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.

The symbols were unveiled on 16 March 2003. The flag is a banner of the municipal arms, the charge excluded.

Ivan Sache, 16 March 2020

Former flag of Torremejía

Torremejía is known in Extremaduran as Torremegía. The symbols of Torremegía were prescribed by an Order issued on 1 April 1986 by the Government of Extremadura and published on 22 April 1986 in the official gazette of Extremadura, No. 33, p. 392 (text)
. The flag, validated on 14 February 1986 by the Royal Academy of History and on 13 March 1986 by the Provincial Council, was described as follows:

Flag: Azure, charged with a five-crenel tower argent taken from the municipal coat of arms of Torremegía.

The Royal Academy "authorized" the proposed flag, which uses the coat of arms' main color and charge.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 183:2, 318. 1986]

The coat of arms of orremegía was prescribed by Decree No. 3324, issued on 15 February 1973 by the Spanish Government and published on 27 February 1973 in the Spanish official gazette, No. 50, p. 3,890 (text).
The coat of arms was described as follows:

Coat of arms: In Spanish shape. Azure a tower argent on sand. [Crown not mentioned].

Ivan Sache, 16 March 2020