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Last modified: 2016-12-20 by ivan sache
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Flag of Valdelarco - Image from the Símbolos de Huelva website, 6 September 2016
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The municipality of Valdelarco (225 inhabitants in 2015; 1,500 ha; municipal website) is located 125 km north of Huelva.
Valdelarco is locally believed to have been named for a triumphal arch (arco) dedicated to the Roman Emperor Trajan and disappeared long ago. Incorporated to the Council of Seville after the Christian reconquest, Valdelarco was granted the status of villa on 25 April 1773 by Charles III, separating from Aracena.
Ivan Sache, 6 September 2016
The flag (photo, photo) and arms of Valdelarco, adopted on 14 December 1994 by the Municipal Council, are prescribed by Decree No. 257, adopted on 10 October 1995 by the Government of Andalusia and published on 15 December 1995 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 159, pp. 11,718-11,719 (text). This was confirmed by a Resolution 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 symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular, in proportions 11 x 18, made of three parallel stripes perpendicular to the hoist, of equal size, the first, green, the second, yellow, and the third, black. Charged in the center with the local coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Or a chestnut tree eradicated vert ensigned by a bent bow sable pointing to the chief. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.
The symbols were proposed on 16 September 1994 by Juan José Antequera.
The municipality has been using, at least since 1876, an oval ink seal featuring a tree. The seal had been used to stamp official documents since 1903, without any variation.
The chestnut is a main source of income in this part of the Sierra de Aracena, favoured by the local climatic conditions. For the sake of differentiation from other municipal arms, a bow was added in chief. The traditional etymology relating Valle del Arco to a Roman arch can be dismissed, since the only Roman archeological remains ever founded in the village are pieces of rough pottery; a wealthy settlement able to erect a commemorative monument is expected to have left much more significant remains. Neither the houses of the village nor its bigger buildings - the church and the Town Hall - exhibit stones that would have been reused from the defunct arch, either. The local historian Victor González Tello believes that Valdelarco was named for a fossil resin, once common in the area, known to chemists as vldarno; the first name of the village would have been Valdearno. This etymology is also considered as dubious.
The village of Valdelarco is of semicircular shape; the main urban nucleus is located in the valley, with some houses scattered on the hillside. The designer of the arms believes that the village was named for its topography; in Spanish, arco means both "an arch" and "a bow". The bow, therefore, makes the arms canting.
[Juan José Antequera. Principios de transmisibilidad en las heráldicas officiales de Sevilla, Córdoba y Huelva]
Ivan Sache, 6 September 2016
