![[Flag]](../images/e/es-m-get.gif)
Last modified: 2019-03-10 by ivan sache
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Flag of Getafe - Image by Ivan Sache, 9 July 2015
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The municipality of Getafe (173,057 inhabitants in 2014, therefore the
6th most populated municipality in the Community; 7,874 ha; municipal website) is located
15 km south of Madrid. The municipal territory encompasses the Cerro de los Ángeles (Angels' Hill; 666 m), traditionally considered as the geographical center of Iberia, crowned by a chapel (14th century) and by the Monument to the Sacred-Heart (1919).
Getafe experienced a demographic boom in the second half of the 20th century, its population increasing from 21,895 inhabitants in 1960 to 151,479 in 2001.
Getafe was established in 1326, as Xatafi, from the merger of different villages located along the Royal road connecting Madrid and Toledo. The name of the new town was derived from Arab jata, meaning "quite wide", therefore referring to the main street of the town, here the Royal road. The name of the town was subsequently changed to Xetafi, Jetafee, Jetaphe, Jetafe and, eventually, Getafe.wBR> The Getafe Air Base was established in 1911, while the School of Civil Aviation was founded there two years later. Juan de la Cierva (1895-1936) completed the first gyroplane flight in 1924. Getafe soon became the most industrialised municipality in the outskirts of Madrid; John Deere (1956) and Siemens (1956) were among the first international companies to establish a factory in Getafe. The Charles III University was inaugurated in the town in 1988.
Ivan Sache, 9 July 2015
The flag (photo, photo, photo, photo) of Getafe is prescribed by a Decree adopted on 15 June 1989
by the Government of the Community of Madrid and published on 18 July
1989 in the official gazette of the Community of Madrid, No. 169, p.
2 (text) and on 27 August 1989 in the Spanish official gazette, No. 200, p.
27,051 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: Red panel with the coat of arms in the center [description skipped]. The proportions of the flag shall be 2:3.
The Royal Academy validated a quite different flag proposal, based on
the colours of the coat of arms, red with a yellow cross and cantonned
with seven aircrafts argent.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 1988, 185, 2: 396]
The coat of arms of Getafe is prescribed by Decree No. 830, adopted on
6 April 1967 by the Spanish Government and published on 25 April 1967
in the Spanish official gazette, No. 98, p. 5,441 (photo).
The coat of arms is described as follows:
Coat of arms: 1. Gules a Latin cross or charged with a heart gules ensigned with flames of the same superimposed by a crown of spines vert, 2. Vert a semy of aircrafts argent. The shield surmounted by a Royal Spanish crown.
The oldest use of a coat of arms in Getafe is documented in Cardinal
Lorenzana's Relaciones (1784): at the time, the town used the arms
of Madrid, engraved on the frontispiece of the Town Hall and on the
wooden banks of the parish church. In 1812, the town used a seal
featuring two palms surrounding the writing ""Alcaldía Constitucional
de Getafe", without any further graphical element. The palms were
inscribed "Cabeza de Partido de la Provincia de Madrid" (Capital of a
[Judiciary] District of the Province of Madrid).
At the end of the 19th century, Francisco Belda y Pérez de Nueros,
Marquis of Cabra, Vice Governor of the Bank of Spain, proposed to
erect a monument dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Cerro
de los Ángeles. The proposal got little support until 1914, when the
Getafe-born lawyer Ramón García Rodrigo de Nocedal revived the idea of celebrating Jesus, as the center of the universe, at the center of
Iberia. The official documents connected to the erection of the
monument, including the transfer of the hill to the Diocese of Madrid-
Alcalá (1921) are all sealed with the new coat of arms of Getafe.
The shield features a globe on which is marked the central point of
Iberia; it is surrounded by a wreath of laurel and surmounted by a
Royal crown. This is, more or less, a copy of the coat of arms used by
the town of Pinto in the 16th and 17th centuries. The arms were maintained in use during the 2nd Republic, in spite of their clerical meaning, the Royal crown being substituted by a mural crown. The design was kept in use, with the re-established Royal crown, until the 1960s.
In the late 1940s, the town of Pinto complained of the use of its
historical arms by Getafe, providing documentation supporting its
claim. Since Getafe never replied, Pinto sued it for plagiarism,
winning the case in 1967, which prompted Getafe to adopt new arms, as
used today.
[José María Real Pingarrón, Escudos, banderas, sellos y timbres de Getafe, Hablemos de Getafe, 30 April 2015]
Ivan Sache, 9 July 2015
![[Flag]](../images/e/es@gcf.jpg)
Flag of Getafe Club de Fútbol - Photo by Esteban Rivera, 25 October 2011
Getafe Club de Fútbol (website) was established on 8 July 1983 as a professional football club, from the merger of Club Deportivo Peña Getafe and Club Getafe Promesas. The club has been playing in the 1st League since 2004, achieving its best ranking (6th) in 2010 and playing twice the final of the national cup (2007 and 2008). Getafe CF reached,
undefeated, the quarters of the UEFA Cup in 2008, after having
defeated AEK Athens and Benfica Lisbon, eventually losing to Bayern
Munich (3-3 / 1-1).
The club's flag is light blue with the club's emblem in the middle
Ivan Sache & Esteban Rivera, 9 July 2015
