Last modified: 2015-09-19 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/e/es-al-oc.gif)
Flag of Olula de Castro - Image from the Símbolos de Almería website, 9 May 2014
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The municipality of Olula de Castro (215 inhabitants in 2008; 3,400 ha) is located in the Sierra del Filabres (1,010 m asl), 50 km north of Almería.
Like the other villages of the Sierra del Filabres, Olula de Castro was settled in the 7th-8th centuries by romanized, Christian Berbers known as Yarawas. After the conquest of Almería, most villagers rallied to King Alfonso VII, who commissioned them to resettle the recently conquered valley of Ebro. The Sierra was subsequently resettled by Islamized Berbers, who founded some twenty villages that existed until the late 16th century, as recorded by the chroniclers of the Catholic Monarchs. The population of Olula and the neighbouring villages, as reported from 1505 to 1538, was totally Morisco. At the end of the Alpujarra Revolt, one half of the population was either dead or jailed. Nearly abandoned and ruined, Olula was slowly resettled from 1573 onwards.
Ivan Sache, 7 July 2009
The flag and arms of Olula de Castro, approved on 26 October 2006 by the Municipal Council and submitted on 1 December 2006 to the Directorate General of Local Administration, are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 20 December 2006 by the Directorate General of Local Administration and published on 4 January 2008 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 3, p. 22 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Panel in proportions 3:2 (length per hoist), diagonally divided by a line starting from the lower hoist and reaching the upper fly in two equal parts: the upper white and the lower green, on the white stripe, at hoist, the municipal coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Shield of Spanish shape. Serrated per fess in five pieces and two half pieces, 1. Azure a tree argent surrounded dexter by a lamb statant argent and sinister by a goat statant of the same, 2. Vert rocks argent issuant from the base surmounted by three esparto bushes or. The shield surmounted with a Royal Spanish crown closed.
The serration alludes to the location of the municipality in the heart of the Sierra de los Filabres. The rocks symbolize the harsh climate, characterized by harsh winter and springs with little rain. The tree, the lamb and the goat represent subsistence agriculture and cattle-breeding. Esparto is a reference to handcraft as the main source of income for the inhabitants.
[Símbolos de las Entidades Locales de Andalucía. Almería (PDF file)]
Ivan Sache, 7 July 2009