Flag of Alabama
From Freepedia
The flag of Alabama was adopted by Act 383 of the Alabama state legislature on February 16, 1895.
- "The flag of the State of Alabama shall be a crimson cross of St. Andrew on a field of white. The bars forming the cross shall be not less than six inches broad, and must extend diagonally across the flag from side to side." - (Code 1896, §3751; Code 1907, §2058; Code 1923, §2995; Code 1940, T. 55, §5.)
A cross of St. Andrew is a diagonal cross, known in vexillology as a saltire. Because the bars must be at least six inches (15.24 cm) wide, small representations of the Alabama flag do not meet the legal definition and can not legally be considered "flags" of Alabama.
Some believe that the crimson saltire of the Flag of Alabama was designed to resemble the blue saltire of the Confederate Battle Flag. The Battle Flag was square-shaped, and Alabama's flag is sometimes shown as a square. However, although the legislature did not specify the proportions, a "cross of St. Andrew" is understood to be rectangular. The authors of a 1917 article in National Geographic expressed their opinion that because the Alabama flag was based on the Battle Flag, it should be square. In 1987, the office of Alabama Attorney General Don Siegelman issued an opinion in which the Battle Flag derivation is repeated, but concluded that the proper shape is rectangular, as it had been depicted numerous times in official publications and reproductions. [1]
The saltire design of the Alabama state flag also bears resemblance to several other flags. It is identical to the flag of Saint Patrick, incorporated into the Union Jack of the United Kingdom to represent the union of Great Britain with Ireland, this may be due to the large percentage of the Alabama population that is descended from Scotch-Irish settlers from Northern Ireland. The flag of Florida also incorporates a red saltire, charged with the seal of Florida.
| Flags of the U.S. states |
| Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Delaware | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | Nevada | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | West Virginia | Wisconsin | Wyoming |
| Flags of the inhabited insular areas and the Federal district |
|---|
| American Samoa | Guam | Northern Mariana Islands | Puerto Rico | Virgin Islands | Washington, D.C. |
| Unofficial flags of the uninhabited insular areas |
| Johnston Atoll | Midway Atoll | Navassa Island | Palmyra Atoll | Wake Island |
References
- Alabama State Flag at the Alabama Department of Archives & History
- Lt. Commander Byron McCandless & Gilbert Grosvenor. "Flags of the World." National Geographic Magazine. Vol 32. No. 4, pp. 281-420 (October 1917).
