I’m glad I have the opportunity to be the first in this thread to point out the flag of Hawaii, which still incorporates the Union Jack. The strange thing about it is that Hawaii (even though it maintained, during its time as an independent kingdom, relations with Britain) was never ruled by the British.
See, I think I respectfully disagree with the idea that “Those are The Rules for flags, and at best we might concede that your flag is still OK even though it broke The Rules”. “The Rules” aren’t official; they were just made up by armchair vexillologists, and while I think they’re pretty good guidelines I wouldn’t go so far as to say “Objectively” this flag violates The Rules, and is therefore in some sense “bad”.
Bhutan obviously falls under the “Yeah, but dragons are totally sweet!” exception to The Rules:
A totally different kind of dragon from a different tradition, but still cool.
But what about Lebanon?
I would say that’s also a fine flag, even if most of us would struggle to draw it.
That double-sidedness is what puts Oregon over the top. Sure, we have a state seal on blue. And the name of the state in big letters. All things that vexillologists deprecate. But none of the others have a double-sided flag. It’s not on that list of flag rules, but v-ologists really deprecate that. I’m proud that we have the worst state flag in the country. (Not!)
I’m probably one of the few people posting in this thread who actually flies his state flag (under the U.S. flag on a pole outside the front of the house. We inherited the Stars and Stripes when we moved in and had the Kentucky flag in storage for years before we moved back to the state, so what the hell).
I’m not crazy about the design of the Kentucky flag, which appears to show Daniel Boone shaking hands with a used car salesman.
Alaska has a great flag, and it has a bear on it too.
The story I remember (too lazy to look it up) is that there was a contest for school children to submit the best design
Okay, I just looked it up. I thought it was int he 50s.
Before 1927, Alaska did not have a flag. At the time, Alaska was still a territory, meaning that the federal government controlled Alaska and its citizens lacked voting representation in Congress. Since Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867, Alaskans had flown only the U.S. flag. But in 1926, Territorial Governor George Parks thought having a flag would help Alaska become a state. He persuaded the Alaska American Legion to hold a contest open to all Alaskan children grades 7 – 12 to design Alaska’s new flag. By January of 1927, the contest rules were circulated to schools throughout the territory. One of the students participating in the contest was thirteen year-old Benny Benson.
Wisconsins is. I see it flown all over beneath the Stars & Stripes. Schools, city/county/state buildings, court houses, police stations, corporate buildings, etc…
Isn’t that the case in every state? That the state flag flies at every state, county and municipal building?
Not really. I understand the utility of having your national flag design be simple and easy to read at a distance in a “friend or foe” encounter. But states, districts, provinces? Let your freak flag fly!
I guess if your state flag is an ugly mess, you won’t sell as many of them, so that might be a reason to consider a redesign.
I would consider ease of drawing to be a less important rule than the others, but while those rules aren’t official or set in stone, they exist for a reason, and are overall good rules. Lebanon’s not too bad, though, because even a child can draw a recognizable green pine tree. It might not have precisely the same details as the official one, but it’d be close enough (especially since even the official one is somewhat abstracted).
And yeah, Alaska’s is a good one all around: It’s simple both in concept and in detail, it doesn’t have any words or anything, there’s no controversy or offense about it, and it’s sufficiently distinctive of its state that even if you didn’t know what state flag it was, you could probably guess it on the first try.
Non-matching sides, I think, falls under the Air Bud rule: It’s so uncommon that nobody would bother to make a “rule” against it, and so it’s allowed, and so it gets to be unique in its own way, sort of like Ohio. It would, however, make it a pain to actually make the flag, since most methods for manufacturing a flag would naturally put the same design on both sides, and you’d have to make sure the other side won’t show through when backlit.
I’ve read that it’s the fault of the Civil War. A state would raise a regiment (like the famous Maine 20th infantry regiment) the the people in charge would say, “Great! Now let’s march them off to war behind our state flag!”
“Um, we don’t have a state flag.”
At the time US Army regimental flags were the color denoting whichever branch it was in (blue for infantry) with the eagle from the Great Seal. The regimental coat of arms would be substituted for the stripes on the shield and the regimental motto would take the place of E Pluribus Unum in the ribbon the eagle had in its mouth.
Some states simply substituted their state seal for the eagle and even specified the flag proportions and shade of blue match the army’s specs then called it done.
Do you remember Lord Baltimore and Joe Lefors tracking Butch and Sundance over solid rock? Neat-o!
Indeed; Cecil Calvert – he has his own whiskey, his own county and if you’re not pronouncing it “Culvert,” you’re not a true Marylander.
You win the prize for best turn of phrase in the thread. Bravo Good Sir!
See, California’s flag fails this silly test and CA has a great flag.
I spent my first 25 years in PA and I haven’t the faintest idea what its flag is like. I suppose it flies over the capitol but certainly not at schools or municipal buildings.
Quebec is different since it thinks of itself as a sovereign country and its flag is seen everywhere.
In Switzerland, cantonal flags are on every licence plate and, in the two cantons I have lived in, are seen everywhere. When our landlord celebrated a landmark wedding anniversary (maybe his 20th), the invitations were embossed with a design that was partly his home cantonal flag and partly his wife’s. Most of the designs were simple (Zurich’s consisted of a blue half and a white half, divided diagonally, while Fribourg’s was a black half and a white half, divided horizontally), but some were complicated including one with a cow with a ring in her nose (Uri, IIRC). Bern had a bear, a pun on its name (which was actually derived from the German name for Verona).
Stars and Bars: Three stripes, red-white-red. Seven white stars in a circle on a blue canton.
Mississippi: Three stripes, blue-white-red. Southern Cross as a canton.
Stars and Bars are definitely not part of the old Mississippi flag.
Wiki: “Though never having historically represented the Confederate States of America as a country, nor having been officially recognized as one of its national flags, the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia and its variants are now flag types commonly referred to as the Confederate Flag . This design has become a recognized symbol of racism and white supremacy to some, especially in the Southern United States. It is also known as the rebel flag , Dixie flag , and Southern cross . It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Stars and Bars , the name of the first national Confederate flag”
I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be a cedar tree, a particular sort of conifer, but if things aren’t too formal I’d guess generic “pine tree” would work fine.
You know the difference between a herald and a comic?
Comics can tell puns, but heralds cant.
I recognize about a dozen or so. Mostly west coast, and states where my team plays football. 
I fly mine quite frequently.
I just quizzed myself on the flags of the various state. I got 34 of them correct. Mainly because:
a. The state is an Important One
b. The state is in the Southwest and therefore familiar to me
c. The name of the state is on the flag.
I grew up in Illinois. I vaguely recall studying it a bit in school. There’s a song: “1818 saw your founding Illinois, Illinois/And your progress is unbounding Illinois, Illinois” or something like that. We had a gung ho history teacher in middle school.
We didn’t have a pledge to it, though some states do.
I didn’t realize how much information that flag was supposed to represent.
In a review by the North American Vexillological Association of 150 American city flags, the Chicago city flag was ranked second best with a rating of 9.03 out of 10, behind only the flag of Washington, D.C.[2]
By the way Ivory Coast and Ireland have similar flags…