Flag of Chicago
municipal flag of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States
The flag of Chicago consists of two light blue horizontal bars, or stripes, on a field of white, each bar one-sixth the height of the full flag, and placed slightly less than one-sixth of the way from the top and bottom. Four bright red stars, with six sharp points each, are set side by side, close together, in the middle third of the flag's surface.
Symbolism
Bars
The three white background areas of the flag represent, from top to bottom, the North, West, and South sides of the city. The top blue bar represents Lake Michigan and the North Branch of the Chicago River. The bottom blue bar represents the South Branch of the river and the "Great Canal", over the Chicago Portage. The light blue of the flag's two bars is variously called sky blue or pale blue; in a 1917 article of a speech by designer Wallace Rice, it was called "the color of water".
Stars
There are four red six-pointed stars on the center white bar. Six-pointed stars are used because five-pointed stars supposedly represented sovereign states and because the star as designed was found on no other known flags as of 1917. From the hoist outwards, the stars represent:
Original to the 1917 flag: This star stands for the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Its six points symbolize transportation, labor, commerce, finance, populousness, and salubrity (health).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Flag of Chicago” as municipal flag of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as municipal flag of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1402799. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1917 and 1871.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Flag of Chicago”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Flag of Chicago primary sources, Flag of Chicago archive and Flag research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Flag of Chicago”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Flag of Chicago” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.