The flag of Tom is a white field with the coat of arms. The crest is an embattled castle in the form of a crown, as seen in Castillan and Spanish flags, such as the Second Spanish Republic. Alex Garofolo, 22 January 2016
The shield could be described as Per fess, Or a demi-griffin rampant Azure armed and langed Gules above Argent three barrulets wavy of the second. Beneath the shield is the name of the commune on a yellow banner. Randy Young, 5 July 2017
Explanation of the flag of Dichato (in Spanish), by the flag's creator:
La Bandera de Dichato esta basada en la vista que se tiene en el horizonte de la playa dichatina, donde se juntan el cielo, los tres morros, las tranquilas aguas de nuestro mar y la arena de nuestra extensa playa. En nungún momento me base en la bandera de Punta Arenas para la construcción de nuestra bandera, que hice con tanto cariño para mi querido Dichato.
Should the yellow really be that light? It is indeed what is used on http://www.dichatoaldia.cl/bandera.htm, but the photograph and YouTube show a yellow that is dark enough to include the white bird borderless. (I can't check fotolog as it's down at the moment.) Also, I wonder whether the grey line is indeed intended as grey, or rather as a light blue. Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 2 March 2008
I received a message from the flag's creator that included the same original JPEG image of the flag and added several interesting photos of this flag in use at diffent locations — apparently separate, though identical, copies. I uploaded them to https://imgur.com/a/Ep3eamK; I presume that the meanwhile defunct Fotolog.COM album included these photos, too.
This flag seems to be a 2:3 horizontal unequal tetraband of dark blue, green, pale teal / cyan, and golden yellow (heights: 4+1+1+6), with the outline of a gull in white at the lower fly, vertically centered on the yellow stripe and facing the hoist, and at the upper hoist, vertically centered on the dark blue stripe, three white five-pointed regular stars, a bigger one closest to the hoist pointing up and two smaller ones, one stacked above the other, flywards next to it, the upper one pointing to the hoist and the lower pointing to the fly.
There are some significant differences, and I presume that the JPEG was a working prototype, altered before production — now to be considered a historical variant, not the flag.
The differences are:
The order of the thinner stripes is different: cyan over green in the prototype, flipped from the version in use.
The shade of yellow is bright (Y) in the prototype and golden (Y+) in the flag in use: Regardless of photography lighting issues, one can always tell apart by means of its contrast when next to white, or lack thereof.
Also significant the color difference of the cyan stripe (the other color diffences are minor and at least one color detail of the prototype might be unwanted: ivory stars contrasting with white gull).
While the flag in use has the geometry of the stripes as 4+1+1+6 (as described in text at the mentioned webpage [banderadichato.html]), in the prototype those are approx. the less simple 22+3+3+26.
Ratio of the prototype is more oblong, about 18:31, but the flag in use seems to be 2:3 (matching the national flag).
On the prototype the stars are placed assymetrically.
On the prototype the outline of the gull is more naturalistic and not horizontally symetric, being also larger.
More information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichato and also at https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichato. Both these pages, under scrutiny of many viewers, show a variant of this flag lacking the gull: While there is heated discussion in the article’s talk page about the flag, this detail seems to have gone unheeded — since 2007. António Martins, 2 April 2024
![[Tomé commune flag]](../images/c/cl-tom.gif)
![[Dichato town flag]](../images/c/cl-dcha.gif)
![[Proposed Dichato town flag]](../images/c/cl-dcha0.gif)
![[Variant Dichato town flag]](../images/c/cl-dcha!.gif)
