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Baja California, Mexico

Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California / Free and Sovereign State of Baja California

Last modified: 2005-12-10 by juan manuel gabino villascán
Keywords: mexico | baja california | coat of arms | orange | constitution | unofficial |
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[National Flag of Mexico and Baja California State Flag]
 4:7
[Baja California flag]
by Juan Manuel Gabino Villascán, August 31, 2001

Official Baja Californa flag according the art. 6 of the State's Constitution

Baja California unofficial white flag 4:7[Non-official proportions]
[Alternate flag]
[One or more variants under the same basic design]
by Juan Manuel Gabino Villascán, November 2005
Coat of arms by Banco de México
See: Coat of arms of white bakground: unofficial flags

See: Other sites:

Presentation of Baja California:
  • Official name: Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California / Free and Sovereign State of Baja California
  • Short-form names: Estado de Baja California / State of Baja California; Baja California
  • Location: The northernmost State of Mexico, North of the Baja California Peninsula. It lays United States of America (N); the Mexican states of Sonora (NE), and Baja California Sur (S); the Sea of Cortés or Gulf California (E), and the Pacific Ocean (W).
  • Area: 70,113 km2
  • Municipalities: 5. Tijuana, Mexicali, Ensenada, Tecate and Playas de Rosarito.
  • Population: 2'487,367 inhabitants (2000)
  • Capital: Mexicali (Pop.: 764,602)
  • Statehood: January 16, 1952
  • Arms adopted: September 27, 1956

INEGI and SEP
Reported by Juan Manuel Gabino Villascán, May 08, 2001.

The Baja California Peninsula

The Baja California Peninsula is divided into two states, Baja California (Lower California) and Baja California Sur (Southern Lower California).
Pascal Vagnat, 03 Jul 1996

Official flag of Baja California

I found an article about the emblems in the text of the constitution of the Mexican state of Baja California in http://www.georgetown.edu/LatAmerPolitical/Constitutions/constitutions.html. Here is a translation of it (the original text is in Spanish, so I could have made some mistakes in the translation):

(...)
Chapter 3: About the official symbols.
Art 6: The national flag, the national hymn and the national coat-of-arms are the obligatory symbols in the whole state, but this one can have its own coat-of-arms. It won't have any other official flags, hymns or coat-of-arms. The usage of the National symbols is subject to the dispositions of the federal ordinances.
(...)

So Baja California (North) doesn't have any flag.
Pascal Vagnat, 03 Jul 1996

Coat of arms

 Baja California State coat of arms
by Banco de México,
November 2005.

From: Gobierno del Estado de Baja California - Escudo
Government of the State of Baja California (Official web site)

"When Baja California reached statehood in 1953, it does not had a coat of arms for its own, thus, at the half of his administration, Governor Braulio Maldonado Sánchez called for a contest. The competition took place on February 24, 1956 and two months later after the Dirección de Acción Cívica y Cultural, (present-day the Secretariat of Education and Social Well-being) made up a panel of judges. Such a competition was annulated for the works presented did not fulfill the requirements asked by the panel. In this way, the panel chose the four better drafts then asked the respective authors to work another draft resulting as winner Armando Deibouis M. The design was adopted as the official Baja California State coat of arms on 27 September 1956."

Quted and translated by Juan Manuel Gabino Villascán, January 19, 2002.

The coat of arms consists of a “cartouche” bordered orange showing a priest from behind, with open arms in front of a double landscape of a corn (?) field and an industrial facility, emerging from a foreground desert. At the top of the cartouche, two indians (?) issuant from the sides, holding hands and a bundle of lightning bolts, and in the opposite hands, a book (sinister) and a lab flask and a triangle ruler (?) (dexter). Above the cartouche, as a crown, a red rising sun with the inscription "TRABAJO Y JUSTICIA SOCIAL" ("Work and social justice").
António Martins, 22 Jun 1999

Historical flags of Baja California
[1888 Flag of Baja California]
by António Martins, 08 Nov 1998

This flag of Baja California dates from 1888.
Don Healy, 05 Jul 1996

From Flag Report 13
by Jaume Ollé
May 9, 2001

"At the same time, Arnulfo Herrera, who works together with the vexilogist and heraldist Enrique Florescano in the National Council for the Culture and the Arts, took steps to investigate what concerns to an unidentified flag of Lower California, which is presumed to correspond to a secessionist attempt - typical - encouraged by the Americans (gringos in Mexican terminology)."