One of the
autonomous communities of
Spain. It lies in the north-east, between
Castile and
the Basque Country. It is famed for its
red wine, called
Rioja. Most (English) people pronounce this re-OCKa, but the J is really the throaty KH sound of Spanish.
The capital is Logroño, on the banks of the River Ebro. In fact half the province (130 000 out of 260 000) live in Logroño and there are no other cities of any size. After democracy came to Spain with the death of Franco, the autonomous communities were formed by grouping together provinces. However, La Rioja consists solely of the province of Logroño. It is one of the smallest in Spain, with an area of less than 5 000 km2.
Web page of the government of La Rioja: www.larioja.org
Flag: horizontal stripes of red, white, green, yellow. The red is sometimes seen as wine-dark red or purple, because of Rioja wine, but the official shade is ordinary red.
www.fotw.ca/flags/es-ri.html
It also gave its name to a city and province in Argentina, up in the Andes in the north-west. It is one of the least populous of Argentine provinces.
Flag: horizontal white over light blue. A red bend sinister (stripe from upper right to lower left). Over that, a wreath of green leaves with red berries, one berry for each of the departments of the province.
www.fotw.ca/flags/ar-lar.html