Vexillologic and Heraldic Musings

One of my favorite time killers is studying flags and coat of arms of people, places and things. Thanks to the internet I have access to stuff  that would have taken forever to research on my own. So of course this pseudo amateur vexillologist  has to look up the flags and coats of his place of origin, The Free Associated State of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is broken into municipalities, each municipality has a coat of arms and flag. I'm from the municipality of Ponce, my family hails mostly from there and the adjacent municipality of Juana Diaz.  I might cover their colors in the future, this time I'm covering what I consider one of the coolest looking flags.

The the flag of Morovis.

Blas Delgado,  Flags of the World (crwflags.com) 

The eagle represents St. John the Evangelist and is a tribute to one of the founders Juan Evangelista. I'm not sure what the bands on the right division represent, other than perhaps the official colors.

I also find the coat of arms of Morovis to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing ones. The coat of arms are usually similar to the flags, in this case the coat of arms of Morovis adds some elements.

Nelson L. Roman, Flags of the World (crwflags.com)

On the left field  is the eagle from the flag but facing inward. On the right field are five violin looking instruments, which are a type of Puerto Rican Cuatro, showing Morovis to be a center of cuatro production.  The small shield in the center (escutcheon) of the coat of arms is the shield of the Carmelite Order, also a representation of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, the patron of the municipality. Each municipality has a corresponding town with the same name that serves as the center. The mural crown above represents the status of the town according to Spanish custom, from what I understand the three towers of the crown is the default designation for a properly constituted municipality, 4 towers represents a villa(village) and 5 towers represents a city.