Flag of North Dakota

What the North Dakota state flag looks like

The state flag has a dark blue field with a large bald eagle in the center. The eagle's wings are spread. On its breast is a shield with red and white stripes, in the style of the U.S. flag. In one talon it holds an olive branch and in the other a bundle of arrows. In its beak the eagle holds a scroll with the Latin words E Pluribus Unum, meaning "out of many, one".

Above the eagle is a curved row of thirteen five-pointed stars under a sunburst, and below it a scroll carries the words North Dakota. The flag's proportions are unusual: the official ratio is 33:26, about 1.27 times as wide as it is tall, which makes it look squarer than most state flags, although it is often produced in 5:3. State law also calls for a border of knotted yellow fringe.

North Dakota flag meaning and symbolism

The design borrows from American national symbols rather than local ones. The eagle holds an olive branch, a classic symbol of peace, and a sheaf of arrows. The shield has seven red and six white stripes, thirteen in all, as in the U.S. coat of arms. The motto E Pluribus Unum appears on the Great Seal of the United States.

The thirteen stars and the sunburst follow the design of the U.S. coat of arms. The state motto, "Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable", is on the state seal and not on the flag.

History of the North Dakota flag

North Dakota became a state in 1889 and had no official flag for more than twenty years. When the First North Dakota Volunteer Infantry went to the Philippines in 1898 during the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War, it carried a regimental banner with an eagle on a blue field. After the veterans returned, the banner became the model for the state flag.

The legislature adopted the flag in 1911. The law called for a flag that follows the regimental banner, with the unit name replaced by the state's name; the original act did not specify colors or proportions, and legislation in 1943 brought the design closer to the original military banner. A state flag commission in the early 1950s proposed a new green wheat-and-sunset design, but a 1953 bill to adopt it failed. The state's colors and the eagle have stayed the same.

Like many state flags, it is a seal-style emblem on a plain background, which makes the details hard to read at a distance. You can compare it with South Dakota and others on the U.S. state flags page.

Interesting facts about the North Dakota flag

• It is modeled on a flag that served in a war, not on a design created in a contest.
• Its proportions are among the least rectangular of any U.S. state flag.
• By law the eagle design is embroidered or stamped on each side of the flag. Oregon's flag, by contrast, has different designs on its two sides.

For the national flag, see the flag of the United States.