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Santa Comba-Dão Municipality (Portugal)

Concelho de Santa Comba-Dão, Distrito de Viseu

2:3 image by Sérgio Horta, 1 Feb 2007

About the Flag
Version without Coat of Arms
Presentation of Santa Comba-Dão

See also:

About the Flag

It is a fairly typical Portuguese municipal flag, with the coat of arms centred on a blue and yellow gyronny (city rank) background.
These arms and flag were adopted upon the upgrade of the municipality seat to city status on 1 November 1999 (though made official only in 30 July 2002) and are an almost trivial change of the former arms.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 31 Jan 2007

Coat of arms

image by Sérgio Horta, 1 Feb 2007

The arms are Azure surrounding a dove displayed Argent armed and eyed Gules between two bunches of grapes leafed Argent and fruited Or two olive branches Or fruited Sable with stems per saltire above a bridge corner Argent masoned Sable with four arches in the dexter half and two in the sinister set on a base wavy barry wavy of Argent and Azure (One reads in paragraph II.1.10 of the relevant law that Portuguese subnational Coats of Arms "must obey the following rules: Simplicity - excluding superfluous elements and using only the necessary ones; "(...)" Stylization - employing the elements used in the form that better serves the aestethical intentions of heraldry and not in their naturalistic shape;".). Mural crown argent with five visible towers (city rank) and white scroll reading in black upper case letters scroll reading in black upper case letters "SANTA COMBA DÃO".
Meaning:
The dove is a canting element, standing for St. Columba of Sens (Potugues/Galician: "Santa Comba)" ; see here and here. Though there is no direct relationship, for this town was named after one of the several more northern toponyms "Santa Comba" and cognates, themselves relating to any of the saints by means of anthoponimic surnames. The base wavy is also canting, for it stands for the river Dão, added to the municipality seat name in order to distinguish it from the other otherwise identical toponyms. The correct spelling would be "Santa Comba-Dão". The olives are golden in this depiction though the law text prescribes "Sable".
The toponym "Santa Comba-Dão" uses an unsual syntax and its parsing by unaware Portuguese speakers is opaque. The last word refers to the local river Dão and its disambiguating addition to the city name lacks the genitive preposition of other such toponyms: The form "Santa Comba do Dão" is unattested, and careful spellers prefer "Santa Comba-Dão", with a separating hyphen, namely on the local train station. The wavy base of the municipal arms stands for the River Dão — it is both geographic and canting).
António Martins-Tuválkin, 31 Jan 2007

Flag and coat of arms adopted and published in the official journal Diário da República: III Série on 30 July 2002
António Martins-Tuválkin, 31 Jan 2007

Former flag

2:3 image by Sérgio Horta, 31 Jan 2007

Former arms and flag adopted and published in the official journal Diário do Governo: III Série on 4 January 1936. These included the usual (town attributes) , four visible crown towers and plain yellow flag, changed to bicolour gyronny in 2004, and no heraldic differences.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 31 Jan 2007 and Klaus-Michael Schneider, 9 May 2018

Version without Coat of Arms

2:3 image by António Martins-Tuválkin, Apr 2010

Presentation of Santa Comba-Dão

Santa Comba-Dão municipality had 11 597 inhabitants in 2011 and consists of 6 communes covering 112.5 km². It is part of Viseu District District, traditional province Beira Alta, 1999 ref. adm. region Beira Litoral, current C.C.R. / NUTS II Centro, and NUTS III Dão-Lafões.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 31 Jan 2007 and Klaus-Michael Schneider, 9 May 2018

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