Coat of arms of Chile
coat of arms
The coat of arms of Chile dates from 1834 and was designed by the English artist Charles Wood Taylor (1792–1856). It is made up by a figurative background divided in two equal parts: the top one is blue and the bottom, red. A five pointed white star is in the centre of the shield. This background is supported in one side by an Andean condor, the most significant bird of prey from the Andes, and in the other, by a huemul, a mammal endemic to Chile. Both animals wear golden naval crowns symbolising the heroic deeds of the Chilean Navy in the Pacific Ocean.
The coat of arms is crowned by a three-feathered crest, each feather bearing one colour: blue, white and red. This crest was a symbol of distinction that former presidents of the Republic used to wear on their hats.
Underneath the coat of arms and on the elaborated pedestal, there is a white band with the motto: Por la Razón o la Fuerza ("By reason or force").
This emblem is the last of a series of variations due to diverse circumstances and understandings.
Official description
Under Decreto Supremo Nº 1534 del Ministerio del Interior de Chile, sobre el uso de los Emblemas Nacionales, Chilean law describes the coat of arms as follows:
The Coat of Arms presents a five-pointed silver star in the center of a cut field, turquoise blue the top and red the bottom and its shape is that fixed by the official model approved by War Decree No.
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This entry incorporates text from “Coat of arms of Chile” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.