Bolivia

República de Bolivia; Republic of Bolivia

Last modified: 2002-04-20 by antonio martins
Keywords: bolivia | state flag | punzó | variation |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors

• About the flag
• State flag of Bolivia
• Modern unofficial variation
• Coat of Arms

• History of the Bolivian Flag
• Bolivian naval ensign
• Bolivian departments (with clickable map)
• Bolivian military flags
• Bolivian political flags
• Native peoples’ flags

• Bolivian parlament website, with the national coat of arms.
  reported by Dov Gutterman, 05 Nov 1998
• Jaume Ollé’s page about Bolivian flags

Flag adopted in 1851.10.31, and confirmed in 1888.07.14.
Jaume Ollé, 01 Jan 1996

The coat of Arms of Bolivia has now 10 stars, for all departments, including the lost maritime one.
Armand du Payrat, 10 Feb 1999

State flag, with the full coat of arms in the middle, extending vertically to some 9/10ths of the yellow stripe's height.
António Martins, 26 Sep 1999

On Bolivian web sites [f.i., http://www.bolivian.com/bolivia/bandera.html] there is a new version of the national flag, which I believe is only for decorative reasons. It shows the coat-of-arms stretching out over all three stripes!
Ralf Stelter, 13 Jun 1999

According to an original piece received from the bolivian embassy in Paris (and a phone call from them), the flag should normally be in 2:3 ratio, the flag in 1:2 being an alternative variant.
Armand du Payrat, 28 Sep 1999

In Webster's New International Dictionary of ca. 1920 [wbs24], I found the a Coat of Arms with the following description:

Shield: Mountain to the right and two hills to the left. To the right of the mountain is a tree. Left under the hill is an alpaca in red (running colors). Left to the top of the mountain is a golden sun on a sky-blue field. The shield is surrounded by a band; upper half is in gold with black inscription "BOLIVIA"; lower half in light blue with nine 5-pointed stars. Left and right to the shield are hanging flags RYV. On top of the shield is a bird, which looks very much like a redbrown eagle. (Wings are comparably too short for a condor).

The official arms has a oval border, yellow in the upper part with caption "Republica Boliviana" (red, also known with caption "Bolivia"), and blue in the lower part with six five pointed yellow stars. In centre is a llama of Andes, an alpaca, a small andine house (not quoted in the law), a palm, a sun, a mountain (the Potosí), a prairie and a sheaf of weath. The background must be white in the upper part and green in the lower part.
Jaume Ollé, 11 Jun 1999