I wonder how many city meetings were devoted to deciding that they needed a little genii in a flying-saucer lamp, but that his halo would need to be short one spoke on the right hand side.
That’s a very good question!
It turns out that was the city’s Civil War battle flag, so it has history behind it. It really is a fine flag!
Also, who decided that there needed to be a ship, but that it should sort of hover over and in front of the water, rather than, say, floating in the water?
The star is supposed to be copper-colored, it just looks orange or (more often kinda brown) when printed. I think the star on the blue bottom field is pretty handsome but agree on the garish sunburst. During World War II there was a move to change the sunburst to something else as it was felt it was too similar to Japan’s battle banner, but it came to naught.
You can blame all those state-seal-on-blue state flags on the Civil War. A state regiment would be formed up and they would discover they didn’t have a state flag to march behind. Being in a hurry, they’d slap the state seal on a field of bluse and call it done. Some of them even used the color and dimension specs for Union Army regimental flags in the legislative description.
What I don’t get about city and county flags is, why they’re needed at all. I wouldn’t be able to identify the flags of any of the cities or counties that I’ve lived in, other than the flag of the county I live in now.
Roman Mars of the “99 Percent Invisible” radio show has talked about how a well designed city flag—particularly the Chicago and D.C. flags—can serve as a popular and strong symbol of civic pride that serves important symbol functions to the local people in ways that commercial sports or college symbols are not broadbased enough to cover.
After seeing the Milwaukee flag, I got to wondering “Huh, city flags? I didn’t know those existed. What does Cleveland’s look like?”, and Googled it yesterday.
Only to notice today that it’s actually flying out in front of my place of work.
Not all states are US states. There’s a whole world outside the USA and many countries are in fact federations of various types. And many of those non-US states also have flags, including some good, many bad, and more than a few WTF?s.
Wikipedia’ s Flags of country subdivisions page. Navigating through the links will show you that state flag fails are not just an American thing.
Here’s a few highlights:
Flag of Jujuy province, Argentina.
Coquimbo Region, Chile
Flag of Amazonas department, Colombia
Hermanas Mirabal province, Dominican Republic
Bong county, Liberia
Friesland province, Netherlands
Yilan County, Taiwan
…and hundreds more. The terrible ones outnumber the good ones by about 20:1.
To me it brings to mind the Cross of Burgundy (minus the fletching) or a St. Andrew’s Cross.
While apparently it was inspired by a Confederate regimental flag, the association is pretty distant and it is officially defined as a St. Andrew’s Cross; that’s a common heraldic motif by itself.
See post #59.
Yuck, they are all ugly. And your top listed one is especially atrocious. I was almost blinded when I opened the link.
Sorry. I agree with the original poster - scrap 'em all.
Grizzlies are certainly badass, but the the “model” used for the flag (Monarch) lived a miserable life and died in captivity. 
St Andrew’s Cross is white on blue; it’s the national flag of Scotland. (Though there are other variations; see link.)
What we have here is a St Patrick’s Cross, which represents Ireland. Both are featured on the UK’s Union Jack (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland).
Both crosses are referred to in heraldry as saltires, BTW.
I dunno, he lived pretty long for a bear. Captured 1889 died 1911. Average in the wild is 22 years.
I’ve discovered that my current County does not have a flag. I should remedy this.
I am partial to the New Mexico flag, even though it is so yellow.
I loved the New Mexico centennial license plate. If the flag were like this, it would be great.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/Nm_centennial_100_plate.png
While not a state, I also like the Puerto Rican flag, as it is so recognizable and alludes to both the U.S. can Cuban flags.
The Tennessee flag to me looks like a simplified, more abstract U.S. flag.
That Milwaukee flag looks like the illustration of the proverb “Too many cooks spoil the broth”. I can just imagine the committee meeting (oh, come on, you know that flag was designed by a committee):
“We’ve got to have water, for the lake and the river, of course.”
“And a ship.”
“Yeah, but what about a church?”
“I think it needs a big gear, for industry.”
“And a ship.”
“Wait, we have agriculture, too!”
“Okay, a gear, a church, a stalk of wheat…”
“And a ship.”
“Oh, what the hell, throw in a ship, too. Any other business? No? Good, we’re adjourned.”
I’m surprised they didn’t include a beer can.
But the circle also represents the buckeye, the state tree, which I think makes it acceptable for “writing.” I’m from Ohio and our flag is my favorite, if only for the burgee shape.
Nm