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Chipiona (Municipality, Andalusia, Spain)

Flag of Chipiona - Image by Ivan Sache, 19 October 2021

Presentation of Chipiona
Symbols of Chipiona
Former flag of Chipiona

See also:

Presentation of Chipiona

The municipality of Chipiona (18,930 inhabitants in 2013; 3,292 ha; tourism website) is located just south-west north-west of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, at the southern end of the mouth of river Guadalquivir.

Chipiona is named for a beacon erected in 140 BC by Roman Proconsul Quintus Servilius Cæpio, known to ancient writers as Kaipionis Pyrgo (Greek) or Monumentom Cæpionis (Latin). Cæpio defeated Viriatus in the area of Lower Guadalquivir; during the battle of Arausio (Orange), fought in 105 BC against the Cimbri and the Teutoni, only 10 out of the 120,000 soldiers of the Roman army, Cæpio included, could save their life.

Nothing is known about the place during the Visigoth and Muslim periods, except that the Moors built a mosque and a fortress.
Reconquerred in 12151 by King Ferdinand III the Saint, the area limited by rivers Guadalquivir and Guadalete was granted in 1295 by Sancho IV to Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, aka the Good Guzmán; this included Sanlúcar, Chipiona, Rota and Trebujena. The transfer was actually made by Ferdinand IV in 1297.
In 1303, Alonso's daughter, Isabel Pérez de Guzmán, married Hernán Ponce de León, bringing Rota and Chipiona as her dowry; the marriage was the root of the house of Arcos. In 1469, Rodrigo Ponce de León, 7th lord of Marchena, 3rd Count of Arcos, Marquess and Duke of Cádiz, inherited Chipiona, which he separated from Rota and chartered on 7 July 1477 to boost the re-settlement of the area. The new settlement was named Regla de Santa Marí.
A dynastic struggle for the Kingdom of Seville initiated in 1471 turned in 1414 into a civil war opposing the house of Medina Sidonia to the house of Arcos and the lords of Chipiona. In 1477, the Catholic Monarchs recognized the submission of Rodrigo Ponce de León during a stay in the Regla old convent.

The Chipiona lighthouse, built from 1863 to 1867 by Jaime Font (1834-1880), Engineer of Roads, Canals and Ports, to signal the entrance of Guadalquivir, is still Spain's highest lighthouse.
Franciscan monks led by Father José Lerchundi (1836-1896) established in 1882 in Chipiona a school to teach missionaries to be sent in North Africa and the Holy Land. Spain's first maritime hospital, St. Clare's sanatorium, was built in 1892 in Chipiona by Tolosa Latour (1857-1917), a pioneer of children's medicine. Latour pushed the adoption in 1904 of the first law protecting children, known as Tolosa Law. He also promoted talassotherapy and heliotherapy on the Italian and French models, selecting Chipiona beaches as the most suitable place. The inauguration of the hospital prompted several aristocratic families to establish chalets, some of them designed by the famous architect Aníbal González. To promote tourism, the municipality of Chipiona offered for free plots to celebrities of the time, who built chalets and houses forming known the Coast of Light Maritime Borough. The Dukes of Montpensier made of Chipiona one of the preferred place of summer vacation for aristocrats.

Ivan Sache, 19 October 2021

Symbols of Chipiona

The flag traditionally used in Chipiona for years was eventually adopted on 20 May 2021 by the Municipal Council, as stated in an Announcement signed on 6 August 2021 by the Mayor and published on 9 September 2021 in the official gazette of Andalusia No. 174, pp. 142 (text).
The flag (photo, photo, photo, photo, photo, photo, photo) is described as follows in the Agreement adopted on 20 May 2021 by the Municipal Council (text).

Flag: Rectangular, composed of two horizontal stripes, blue and white, of equal width, and of the coat of arms in the center. The upper stripe blue and the lower white.

The blue color is specified as follows:
RGB: 45 80 156
Hexadecimal 2d509c

The proportions of the flag are 2:3.
The coat of arms is 1/3 he flag's hoist in length and 1/2 in width, its vertical axis matching the flag's vertical axis.

The "rehabilitation" of the flag is supported by a short memoir (text) written by Juan Luis Naval Molero, official Chronicler of the town of Chipiona.
Asociación Cultural Caepionis proposes to officially register the flag horizontally divided blue-white and charged in the center with the municipal coat of arms since there is no record of any other flag ever used in the town; moreover, the flag is widely used in Chipiona's emblematic places, such as the Town Hall and its dependencies, the port, the congress and exhibition hall, the beaches, the Regla festival, hotels, the Chipiona Red Cross, the music band, colleges and institutes, etc.
For more than four decades, the local sport clubs such as Chipiona C.F., Juventud de Regla de Baloncesti, Chipiona C.B., Club de Atletismo Chipiona, Club de Vela, Club Balonman Instituto Salmedina, Club Hípico de Chipiona etc., have used the blue and white colors. Blue represents the sea while white represents the candor of scum beating Chipiona's rocks and coasts.
To prevent confusion and duplication with Huelva, Jerez de la Frontera and other towns using the blue and white colors, a distinctive element shall be added to the flag. The addition of Chipiona's coat of arms in the center of the flag in current use is appropriate.

The first coat of arms of Chipiona was prescribed by Decree No. 430, adopted on 29 January 1970 and published on 24 February 1970 in the Spanish official gazette, No. 47, p. 2,977 (text).
The "rehabilitated", traditional coat of arms, validated by the Royal Academy of History, is prescribed as follows:

Coat of arms: Azure a tower or masoned sable port and windows gules on waves argent and azure ensigned by an eight-pointed star argent. A bordure or inscribed with "SCIPIONIS TURRIS" in letters sable. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown [open].

The modification of the writing on the bordure of the coat of arms to "CAEPIONIS TURRIS", adopted on 20 June 1996 by the Municipal Council and validated on 29 July 1997 by the Royal Academy of Cordóba, is prescribed by Decree No. 258, adopted on 4 November 1997 by the Government of Andalusia and published on 27 November 1997 in the official gazette of Andalusia, no. 138, pp. 14,063-14,064 (text). This was confirmed by a Decree adopted on 30 November 2004 by the Government of Andalusia and published on 20 December 2004 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 246, pp. 28,986-29,002 (text).

The tower represents a fortification erected by the Tartessians or by Scipio. The star represents godess Venus, once adorated as the Morning Star. The waves represent the Atlantic Ocean.
[Símbolos de las Entidades Locales de Andalucía. Cádiz]

Ivan Sache, 19 October 2021

Former flag of Chipiona

Flag of Chipiona, two versions - Images by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 1 December 2009, coat of arms from Símbolos de Cadíz

The former, unofficial flag of Chipiona was horizontally divided blue-white, either with (as seen on 13 November 2009 at the Tourist Office) or without (as seen on 8 November 2009 near the lighthouse) the municipal coat of arms.

Klaus-Michael Schneider, 1 December 2009