Flag of Uruguay
The flag of Uruguay comes from the time when the Banda Oriental del Uruguay ( the eastern bank of the Uruguay ) of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata ( Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata from which later Argentina was born) replaced: The flag was sky blue and white with a golden sun - symbols that are also part of the flag of Argentina.
Description and significance
In the upper leech is the native of Argentina Sol de Mayo ( May sunshine, even Inca sun called ), the sun of freedom. However, the Uruguayan sun has only 16 rays in comparison to the 32 rays of the Argentinian sun. The sun has a diameter of 11/15 of the white field. The edge length of the white field is as large as the first five strips. The nine stripes ( five white and four blue ) represent the nine original departments.
History
José Gervasio Artigas, the leader of Uruguay in the struggle for independence, and later freedom fighters, the so-called Treinta y Tres (33 fighters from the Banda Oriental ), led, among other variants, blue-white- blue flags with a red oblique beams (of top left to bottom right) or red-white- blue with the inscription Libertad o Muerte ( freedom or death).
After the country gained independence in 1828 the Parliament on 16 December decided to adopt a new flag with nine sky blue stripes. Whether already a variant with a sun was hoisted in the upper canton, is not precisely known. This was influenced in the colors of the flag of Argentina and of the stripes flag of the United States. The strips were for the nine departments of Uruguay at the time of independence. But soon disturbed the variety of strips (19 ), so this was modified on July 11, 1830 on the present one. A law of December 16, 1830 put this finally established as the national flag. Between 1839 and 1851 it was decided to briefly, the blue and white stripes to exchange with each other in order to complete the upper and lower edge of the flag with a paint can. The flag thus consisted of five blue and four white stripes. From the year 1843, the sun was doing even moved into the center of the flag. It was only on October 8, 1851 there was a return to constitutional and still widely accepted version of 11 July 1830.
? Flag of the 33 fighters from the Banda Oriental with inscription " Liberty or Death ", 1825
? Flag of 1828