A lot of UK county flags are surprisingly recent. Oxfordshire is 2017. Dorset is 2006. I remember when it was being floated as a possible design. But there is a strong tradition of heraldry so lots of institutions had coats of arms before they got flags.
Personally I like flags so the more the merrier!
that flag is awesome. the nz case does sound pretty bad. with occasional humor:
The $4 million publicity campaign for the national tour was criticised as public turnout was markedly apathetic; some admitted that they attended just for free biscuits, and at the Christchurch event only ten people arrived.
i don’t think there’s any reason the minnesota flag needs to be, or will be a debacle. soliciting the public is cool, and there are solid candidate flags they can move forward
And yet I’ve been blissfully unaware of county (or city) flags for 54 years. Which demonstrates how unimportant they are. But they still cost time and money, even if a small amount. Very few if not no one flies them from their house, which shows how unimportant they are. They are only on gov’t buildings, which makes no sense because there is always a sign announcing the government and function anyway.
Seems like pointless pride and regionalism and officials desiring self-importance wrapped up in symbolism. I need my county to run its services well, not help instill a sense of place or symbolize local values.
You’re perfectly free to continue ignoring the existence of such things if they really bother you so much.
Not knowing about something always says less about it than you, just for the record.
Northumberland’s is ancient, coming from an erroneous description of a war banner from the 7th century.
The point isn’t my own ignorance, it’s also that 99% of everyone else who doesn’t work for that gov’t entity doesn’t know and doesn’t care either, as evidenced by the lack of county flags flying around. And even if I were well aware of them, I would still make the other points.
People here are having fun with it, I get it, but All of us have a stake in how people perceive our gov’t, and I just find it unappealingly grandiose for smaller gov’t entities that should have more important things to worry about and humbler politicians. If Sussex and Wessex and Kent et al have flags, fine, those were Dukedoms. The US isn’t supposed to have that nonsense.
Want to take pride in your locality? Go nuts, but I’d prefer the government stay out of it and let people have their own values and symbols.
Alright, I’m done taking this way too seriously, back to the laser loons. If loons could zap MN’s legendary mosquitos with those now that would really be something.
Northumberland was a country of its own at one time.
government when done right is a representation of people’s values and symbols; a structured way to act collectively. so a flag can be a way for the community to show that unity.
sometimes people even try to achieve new governance under the banner of their own flags. Cascadia movement - Wikipedia
( it really is a nice flag, if maybe hard to reproduce accurately. how many branches are there exactly? )
( eta: although to accurately reflect the pacific northwest, i’d think the sky should be more grey than blue. 
)
Executive, legislative, and judicial.
For those who don’t know, Cook County includes all of Chicago and some of the adjacent suburbs, but it’s at least 90% Chicago.
I know that only because of Blues Brothers, where they had to get to the Cook County Assessor to pay the property taxes for the orphanage.
Hear, hear. I think our world would be a better place if more people felt a sense of civic pride in their state and local governments. I still get a little thrill every time I walk into a beautiful, visually welcoming government building like San Francisco’s City Hall.
Technically that was Northumbria, which has a similar but different flag
“Wessex”? Not so fast…
As a Sydslesvig irredentist, I am under a contractual obligation to wave the corresponding flag on every occasion.
Learned something new today…thank you!
me too! @smut_clyde, let me add i hope you speak north frisian because that’s a language i’ve never even heard of before today.
( i suspect the tower of babel must have been somewhere denmark-ish. there are just so many languages in the neighborhood )
Just about my reaction to some of the proposed designs.
Ah, op ewig ungedeelt…
