What is its meaning and what does its colors represent?
The flag of Argentina is a national symbol of the Argentine Republic. It is the most recognized distinctive of this country internationally.
It is composed of three horizontal stripes of equal size, the upper and lower stripes being light blue, and the central stripe white. In the center of the white stripe there is a sun with a human face. It has a width to length ratio of 9 to 14.
The current Argentine flag is based on the one designed by Manuel Belgrano based on the colors of the Argentine national cockade, which was light blue and white. It was raised for the first time in the city of Rosario, on February 27, 1812..
It was adopted as the national symbol of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata on July 20, 1816 by the General Constituent Congress of San Miguel de Tucumán.
In Argentina, it was defined as Flag Day on the day of the death of Manuel Belgrano, the June 20thas a commemoration of the hero, who died in 1820.
Meaning of the colors of the Argentine flag
Generally, it has been customary to associate the colors of the flag with the colors of the sky, where the sun, white and azure blue act as a representation of the sky.
However, the colors of the Argentine flag coincide with the colors of the dresses of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conceptiontraditionally albiceleste, as a symbol precisely of heaven.
Likewise, sky blue and white were the colors that identified the Royal and Distinguished Spanish Order Carlos IIIthe most appreciated by the Bourbons, which also has an image of the Virgin Mary in its dedication to the Immaculate Conception.
In this sense, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento indicates that the choice of these colors actually indicated the sovereignty of the Spanish Crown over the South American nation, whose king had been deposed by Napoleon. So on May 25 these colors had been taken to show that the Argentines took their sovereignty from the king himself.
Meaning of the sun
In the center of the white stripe of the flag is a sun with a human face known as may sun, inca sun either war sun. It was added to the flag in 1818 by Juan Martín Pueyrredón, ultimately supreme director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata.
The sun represents the May revolutionwhich took place in the city of Buenos Aires on the day May 25, 1810, the day on which the process of independence of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata from Spain began. Likewise, he represents Inti, Inca god of the sun. Hence it is a human face with a serene expression.
This sun is golden yellow in color, with thirty-two rays, sixteen of which point clockwise, while the remaining sixteen are straight, all of which are arranged alternately around the figure of the sun.
Before 1985, the flag with the sun was only used by the military and official institutions, but from then on it also began to have civilian use.