9 Oct 2012

Antofagasta Region (Chile)

Antofagasta is the only Chilean region without its own flag. About a month ago, the region's intendant (the term is equivalent to "manager" or "steward") released a competition to choose a new flag (see a news link here). Apparently, only region's inhabitants can post a proposal, but I created my own anyway.

Currently, as there isn't an official flag, they use the intendant's flag:

















That flag is a blue field with a seal consisting of Chilean national coat of arms and a inscription "Intendencia II RegiĆ³n - Antofagasta", that I freely translate as "Administration of Region II - Antofagasta". It's ugly and indistinguishable.

Historically, the Antofagasta constituted the Litoral Department, of Bolivia (Chile gained sovereignty over the area during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). In this time, they used the flag below, that I discarded:

















I was making some prototypes with arrows before, and I found here a perfect opportunity to use them:

















I tried to use the Litoral department colors, but it increased too much flag's complexity and decreased the flag's visual impact. Blue is for the ocean: the capital city, Antofagasta, is a great port. The first arrow, pointing to the ocean (see Chile map), represents mining, the biggest economic activity of region. The orange color represents copper, more important and commonly found ore in region. The second arrow represents second biggest economic activity: the tourism, oriented mainly to pre-Columbian archaeology sites and the salares (salt pans). Salt also represent an important role in native ancient inhabitants' life, so it also represents them.

Thank you for reading. Your comment is very appreciated.
There might be two posts in next week. Hope I can...

1 comment:

  1. I like your design it stands out and after looking at the flags of the other regions of Chile it is unique,modern and stands out. I have also had ago although I don't think my design is as good as yours http://samsflags.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/antofagasta-region-flag-competition.html

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