Flag of Seattle
Open-knowledge reference entry
The municipal flag of Seattle is teal and white, featuring the Seattle city logo (a portrait of Chief Seattle surrounded by two lines), with the words "City of Goodwill" above and "Seattle" below.
The flag was designed by architect David Wright and endorsed by Seattle City Councilmember Paul Kraabel. It was adopted on July 16, 1990, for use during the Goodwill Games.
The flag has been criticized for breaking conventional rules for good flag design, particularly its complex design that incorporates the city seal.
Proposals to redesign the flag were solicited in 2019 by The Seattle Times and The Stranger, with the latter running a public poll.
Symbolism
Council resolution 28207 states that the color of the Flag of Seattle "shall be white and teal blue/green (the color of Puget Sound at dusk)."
Controversy over the use of Chief Seattle as a logo
On August 6, 2021, the Sauk-Suiattle tribe called on the mayor and the City Council to live up to the legacy of Chief Seattle and help restore the region's salmon supply by allowing for fish passage through 3 dams managed by Seattle City Light or cease to use his likeness. In their open letter they state:"Sealth, or Chief Seattle, was a person known for his integrity. He believed there was no separation between people and nature. In tribal culture, the bestowal of a name carries with it a duty to live up to that name. City of Seattle, live up to the values of your namesake, or cease bearing his image as the Great Seal of the City of Seattle."As of September 28, 2021, the Sauk-Suiattle tribe had not heard back from the mayor or any of the City Council members.
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This entry incorporates text from “Flag of Seattle” 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.