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![[Flag]](../images/e/es-mu-fa.gif)
Flag of Fuente Álamo de Murcia - Image by Ivan Sache, 22 July 2015
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The municipality of Fuente Álamo de Murcia (14,876 inhabitants in 2009; 273 sq. km; municipal website) is located 35 km south of Murcia.
In 1520, a group of workers and farmers decided to settle in a place known at least since the 15th century as La Fuente de el Álamo (The Poplar's Fountain). Very isolated, the new village remained for long the only inhabited settlement between Lorca and Cartagena. Due to the availability in land and water, the village developed quickly, so that its population increased to 240 in 1640.
However, the settlement had no proper status and was divided into three sections, each run by the remote municipality of Cartagena, Lorca or Murcia. This complex administrative situation did not boost the development of the village. Aspiration to a local administration grew up; led by the notables, 120 villagers gathered on 31 August 1694 on the village's square to ask for a municipal status. Commissioned to plead the cause at the Royal Court, Gregorio Reillo Hernández was able to convince King Philip IV; however, Cartagena, Lorca and Murcia were not prepared to abandon a significant source of income and proposed to pay a big annuity to the king to maintain Fuente Álamo under their rule. Nothing happened until Philip IV's death; his successor, the ill Charles II, signed on 20 July 1700 a Royal Letter granting the status of villa to Fuente Álamo.
Ivan Sache, 4 April 2010
The flag and arms of Fuente Álamo de Murcia, approved on 10 July 2014 by the
Municipal Council, are prescribed by Decree No. 1, adopted on 23
January 2015 by the Government of the Region of Murcia and published
on 27 January 2015 in the official gazette of the Region of Murcia,
No. 21, pp. 2,313-2,316 (text).
The symbols were approved on 12 September 2014 by the Royal Academy
"Alfonso X the Wise" of Murcia.
The proposed flag, supported by a memoir presented on 30 April 2014 by Luís Lisón Hernández, is in proportions 2:3, green, charged in the middle with a silver gray radiating sun, itself charged with a green poplar [álamo] with silver gray branches. The colours are specified as:
Colour Pantone Green 355 C Silver gray Cool Gray 3 C
However, the Municipal Council eventually adopted a flag horizontally divided silver-green.
Fuente Álamo de Murcia already had a coat of arms, prescribed by Decree No. 1,749, adopted on 1 July 1971 by the Spanish Government. However, the coat of arms was never used as prescribed, being represented with several, arbitrary variations featured without any justification. Accordingly, a new coat of arms is proposed, described as follows:
Coat of arms: Shield in Spanish style, argent a poplar vert on a base of the same in base a fess wavy argent charged with a fess wavy azure. A bordure or inscribed with the motto "FUENTE ÁLAMO DE MURCIA, MUY NOBLE Y MUY LEAL VILLA" in letters sable. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown.
The colours are specified as:
Colour Pantone Argent 7541 C Or 103 C Vert 7481 C Sable Black C Azure 2727 C Maroon 119 C Gules 186 C
The flag was inaugurated on 6 June 2015 (photo, La Opinión de Murcia, 19 July 2015). The flag in use is horizontally divided white-green with the municipal coat of arms in the middle.
The Municipal Ordinance regulating the use of the flag and arms of Fuente Álamo de Murcia, provisionally adopted on 26 February 2015 by the Municipal Council, was definitively approved on 21 April 2015 and published on 6 May 2015 in the official gazette of the Region of Murcia, No. 102, pp. 18,787-18,790 (text).
Article 1. Flag.
The flag of Fuente Álamo de Murcia, as prescribed in Article 1 of Decree No. 1 adopted on 23 January 2015, is rectangular, with proportions 2:3, and made of two horizontal stripes of equal dimension, the lower green and the upper silver.Article 2. Coat of arms.
1. The coat of arms of Fuente Álamo de Murcia, as prescribed in Article 2 of Decree No. 1 adopted on 23 January 2015, is defined in heraldic language as follows:
Coat of arms: Shield in Spanish style. Argent a poplar vert on a base of the same in base a wave argent charged with another wave azure. A bordure or with the caption "Fuente Álamo de Murcia Muy Noble y Muy Leal Villa" in letters sable. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown.
2. The model of the coat of arms is appended as Appendix II of Decree No. 1 adopted on 23 January 2015.
3. The municipality may adopt a simplified model of the arms, in colours or greytones, with or without the bordure, to be used as a seal of official documents. Also, the municipality may design logotypes inspired by the coat of arms to be used in municipal buildings and services, as well as on related graphical material. As for the Local Police, its insignia shall include the original and complete coat of arms of the municipality, according to the design prescribed by a Decree of the Mayor.Article 3. Flag with the coat of arms.
1. The flag and the coat of arms can be used together, following the prescriptions:
a) The coat of arms shall be placed in the center of the flag. For this, on the horizontal and vertical axes, the center of the coat of arms is the center of the circle vert representing the foliage of the poplar.
b) The total width of the coat of arms, the crown included, shall be 2/5 of the flag's hoist.
2. The flags used according to Article 4.1 shall bear the coat of arms.Article 4. Use of the municipal symbols.
1. The flag of Fuente Álamo de Murcia shall be hoisted outside the buildings of the municipal bodies and services. It shall also be displayed in the Council Room of the Town Hall and in the Mayor's official room.
2. In official use, the flag of Fuente Álamo de Murcia shall be displayed jointly with the flags of Spain, of the European Union, and of the Region of Murcia.
The arrangement of the flags shall be, from the viewer's point of view and from left to right: European Union, Spain, Region of Murcia, and Fuente Álamo de Murcia.
3. The municipality shall promote the use of the flag of Fuente Álamo de Murcia in the educational centers of the municipality.
4. The use of the flag of Fuente çlamo de Murcia charged with symbols or acronyms of political parties, unions, associations, or private entities is forbidden, except for sports clubs and other non-profit entities, with specific permission granted by the Municipal Council.
5. The coat of arms of Fuente Álamo de Murcia shall be used exclusively as the institutional symbol of the Municipality, of its domains, bodies, divisions, or services. Any other use is subjected to specific permission granted by the Municipal Council.Article 5. Breaches and fees.
1. The illegal use of the flag or coat of arms of Fuente Álamo de Murcia, as defined in Paragraphs 4 and 5 of Article 4 of the present Ordinance, shall be considered as a benign infraction, punished by a 100-750 euro fee.
2. The amount of the fee shall take into account the following aggravating circumstances:
a) Search of profit or commercial interest
b) Range of diffusion of the illegally used symbolBR> c) Repetition of the breach within the two years preceding it
d) Willingness to desecrate the municipal symbols
e) Simulation of official use.Transitory provision. Flag of the European Union.
1. If the number of masts is not sufficient, it is possible to skip the flag of the European Union, using the following arrangement from the viewer's point of view and from left to right: Region of Murcia, Spain, and Fuente Álamo de Murcia.
2. The Municipality shall set up within 6 months the masts required to display the flags as prescribed in Article 4.2.
Ivan Sache, 23 April 2016
First coat of arms
The first coat of arms of Fuente Álamo de Murcia was prescribed by Decree No. 1,749, adopted on 1 July 1971 by the Spanish Government and published on 20 July 1971 in the Spanish official gazette, No. 172, p. 11,903 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:
Coat of arms: Shield in Spanish style. Argent a poplar vert on a base of the same in base a wave azure charged with a wave argent. In the bordure the writing "FUENTE ÁLAMO DE MURCIA, MUY NOBLE Y MUY LEAL VILLA". The shield surmounted by a Royal crown.
In 1947, the official Chronicler of the town, Ricardo Ortega Merino, called in the pamphlet El escudo de Fuente Álamo (The coat of arms of Fuente Álamo) for the design of a municipal coat of arms. The book shows a seal used during the Spanish Republic, oval with a tree and a fountain, a mural crown and the rim charged with the writing "AYUTAMIENTO - REPUBLICA - FUENTE-ÁLAMO DE MURCIA", deemed inappropriate by the author.
The municipal archives keep remains of a poster advertizing a taurine festival, designed in 1944 by the painter Laorden; Ortega describes the arms as follows:
In the background a mountain, looking like the Giza pyramid, a kind of basin supplied by a crozier-shaped fountain placed below a poplar. The whole surmounted by a Count's coronet, of the fantastic origin I have no idea.
Ortega concluded with the proposal of an heraldic shield: "The arms of Fuente Álamo shall be azure, in base a water fountain, on its left a leaved poplar", and commissioned the young painter José Hernández García (b. 1929, today a locally noted artist) to design the arms.
[Municipal website]
The Royal Academy of History approved the proposed arms, recommending
to replace the oval shape of the shield by the usual Spanish shape and
to design the arms in a non-realistic manner, the representation of
the fountain and the poplar on the proposal being of "photographic
compliance".
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 1970, 170:2, 415-416]
Ivan Sache, 4 May 2015
Earlier flag proposals
![[Flag]](../images/e/es-mu!fa.gif)
Earlier flag proposal - Image by Ivan Sache, 23 April 2016
The town once used, unofficially, a red banner. To prevent confusion with the regional flag, the Municipal Council commissioned the town's official chronicler, Andrés Nieto, to design a distinctive flag "more compliant with the local traditions".
The proposed flag was celestial blue with the municipal coat of arms in the center.
[La Verdad, 3 August 2009]
The proposal, however, was rejected by a commission composed of "people knwledgeable on the history of the town". The Municipal Council adopted on 30 March 2010 a totally different flag, horizontally divided green-white-blue (1:2:1) with the municipal coat of arms in the central stripe. The colours symbolically represent the name of the town, blue for the fountain nd green for the poplar. Nine red stars, of unspecified arrangement, were to represent the nine villages forming the municipality
[Press release, 31 March 2010]
Ivan Sache, 4 April 2010