Regional and Local Flags

City Syndria

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The central knot lends City Syndria’s flag its “twister” nickname.

City Syndria adopted the distinctly modern design of its current flag in 1951. Originally proposed by graphic artist and Syndria native Jessica Kuei, it features an unusual five-looped heraldic knot with a five-pointed star in the center. Both symbols separately reference the five villages — Avedra Selene, Avendria, Colony Bay, Kinesia, and Tyndaria — that combined to form the city in 1885, becoming its five present-day districts. When taken as a whole, the emblem evokes the image of the pentamerous plum blossom (Prunus mume), the city flower, with the knot as the petals and the star as an abstraction of the prominent stamens. The deep blue background, meanwhile, depicts the sea surrounding the numerous islands that make up the city.

Rothan Lang based the colors and symbology of his 1885 design on the flags of the United States and Texas.

For nearly the first seven decades of the city’s existence, Syndria’s flag was composed of a red field containing a single white five-pointed star, bounded by navy blue bars at the top and bottom. This version of the flag was designed by Rothan Lang, historian and friend of the amalgamated city’s first governor, Frederick Jensen. The “five parts, one whole” symbolism of the star, and the use of blue to represent the water, both originated with Lang’s design.

The so-called “founder’s flag” quickly became widespread, but it was not without its critics. Its substantial borrowing of elements from the United States and Texas flags, both of which Lang had openly acknowledged as inspiration, was a particular point of aesthetic contention. Lang’s flag would ultimately be doomed, however, by the actions of an entity that did not even exist until after World War II. In 1948, the newly established socialist government of North Korea adopted a nearly identical design as its own national flag. This led to an immediate, precipitous dive in the red-and-blue banner’s popularity, one that was especially pronounced among City Syndria’s sizable, strongly anti-communist Chinese community. Finally, in 1950, with the Korean War already underway, then-governor Innan Alamay ordered all city buildings to cease flying the 1885 flag until a new one could be selected. The executive committee Alamay formed to carry out this task would eventually nominate Kuei’s design, which was inaugurated the following year.