The Guayaquil flag has five horizontal stripes; three of the bands are sky blue and two are white. Located in the middle blue band, there are three white five-pointed stars.
The Guayaquil flag was designed by José Joaquín de Olmedo, a politician who is also responsible for designing the city's coat of arms, as well as composing the anthem. This flag was inaugurated on October 9, 1820, being the Governing Board of the Free Province of Guayaquil, the one in charge of presenting it in public.
Between 1534 and 1547, the Spanish colonizing empire conquered Guayaquil, thus giving the city its name. This European rule lasted approximately 300 years, until on October 9, 1820, the independence movement began with Joaquín de Olmedo at the head.
In November of that year, the Free Province of Guayaquil was created as a sovereign State with a Constitution and an army. But since 1830, Guayaquil was annexed to the nation of Ecuador. Currently, it is the most populated city in this country.
The flag that commemorated Guayaquil as a free province continues to be the flag of the city of Guayaquil today.
History of the Guayaquil flag
It must be remembered that at first this flag symbolized the independent province of Guayaquil, but later this province was annexed to the nation of Ecuador. As the Ecuadorian national flag, the Guayaquil flag is considered the fourth in total.
The Guayaquil flag has great importance and is considered the first flag to represent the Republic of Ecuador as a free place.
This blue and white flag was the flag raised when the independence troops triumphed over the royalist troops in the Battle of Pichincha on May 24, 1822.
This flag was determined as the national symbol of Guayaquil after the army of independence triumphed over the Spanish crown on October 9, 1820.
It was created by Dr. José Joaquín de Olmedo. Its design separates five bands located horizontally. The first, third, and fifth bands are light blue. On the other hand, both the second and the fourth stripes are white.
In the blue band, located in the middle, are three white stars. Currently, the original flag remains the flag of the current city of Guayaquil. Additionally, the sky blue and white colors are considered as the colors of this city.
Meaning of the flag
The stars
At first, the three central stars were believed to symbolize the three main provinces of the Royal Audience of Quito (Quito, Cuenca, and Guayaquil).
However, some experts believe that these stars rather symbolized the three most important cities of the then Free Province of Guayaquil. In that case, these stars would be representing the capital Guayaquil, Portoviejo and Machala.
Historians who oppose the theory that they represented the provinces of Guayaquil, are based on the fact that Machala was a city of much less importance, both economically and in population, compared to other populations of the time such as Daule, Bodegas or Baba.
On the other hand, the other cities could be more accepted since Portoviejo was the second most important city as it was the head of the party, being an autonomous city and being the oldest in the entire Province of Guayaquil.
There are other proposals that affirm that the city of Jipijapa symbolized the third most important city in the Province.
This is because it was one of the most populated cities and it was one of the most economically prosperous places. It had a large agricultural economy, a cotton company, a tobacco company, and a large handicraft business.
Despite these claims, most researchers and historians experts on the subject affirm that the stars represent Guayaquil, Quito and Cuenca.
Colors
The historian Pedro Robles Chambers managed to reach a consensus on the colors of the flag in 1952, when he carried out an exhaustive investigation that was able to determine the use and representation of the colors.
Chambers first rebuilt the coat of arms of the city of Guayaquil. In this shield it can be seen that the Guayas River is represented by several stripes.
These five horizontal bands are divided as follows: three blue bands and two white bands.
In this way, the same parallelism can be made with the Guayaquil flag. The same five horizontal bands of the shield have the same colors as the flag; These colors symbolize the Guayas River and the La Paz River.
However, other people affirm that although the sky blue represented the Guayas River and La Paz, the white color represented the peace that was wanted to be achieved.
Another version affirms that the election for which they were chosen was that they wanted to represent the triumph in the wars of Independence of the Provinces of the Río de la Plata.
And it is that white and blue were the colors that José San Martín's troops wore when crossing the Before and fighting for the freedom of Chile and Peru.
Whatever the real story, the colors azure blue and white are of great importance in Guayaquil. To this day these colors continue to be an important symbol, both in Guayaquil and in its province.
References
- Guayaquil Flag (2015). Recovered from ecuadornoticias.com.
- The hidden origin of the colors of Guayaquil. Recovered from eltelegrafo.com.
- Guayaquil flag. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
- History of Guayaquil. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
- Guayaquil flag, its meaning and history. Recovered from forosecuador.ec.
- History and meaning of the Guayaquil flag (2015). Recovered from sinmiedosec.com.