Regional Flags (U.S.)

Last modified: 2004-12-22 by rick wyatt
Keywords: united states | cascadia | new england | franco-american | st. john valley | lewiston | hampton roads |
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• New England
• Franco-American flags
• French communities in Maine
• Cascadia
• Hampton Roads, Virginia

See also:

• United States of America
• New England flags
• New England Historical Flags by Dave Martucci
• Acadiana
• Louisiana
• Massachusetts
• Maine
• Washington

by Dave Martucci, 27 April 1998

The true flag of New England is a red ensign, with a white canton bearing a green pine tree. It is the third basic variant of the New England Flag of 1686, which was also a red ensign with a white canton bearing the red cross of St. George and green pine tree in the canton of the cross. For further details of the flags of New England, see New England flags.

A commercial flag of New England

Note: There is a flag being touted as "THE Flag of New England" that is blue with the cross and tree in the canton and six stars in a circle in the fly. This flag has no basis in good history or good vexillology. It was invented by a Flag Company in Ipswich, Massachusetts strictly for commercial purposes and they have sold many to unsuspecting customers. For more info, click here.

I found some information on Franco-American flags in this book :
Bizier, H.-A. and C. Paulette, Fleur de lys : d'hier a aujourd'hui, Montreal: Art Global, 1997.

The Franco-American flag with a fleur-de-lis within a white star is the flag of the Assemblée des francophones du Nord-Est who adopted it in 1983. The blue and white are taken from the flags of the U.S., Quebec, Acadia and France. The star represents the U.S. and the fleur-de-lis represents the French culture of the Franco-Americans.

In the Midwest, Franco-Americans adopted a version of the royal banner of France (the field is very dark blue and the three fleurs de lys are gold). It reminds the French explorers who carried the royal arms during their travel in North America. The flag is known as drapeau de (flag of) Marquette, one of the discoverers of the Mississippi and symbolizes the ancientness of the French presence. It was adopted in 1984 by the Alliance franco-américaine du Midwest that regroups the Franco-Americans of the twelve states of the region.

A last Franco-American flag is the flag of Le Club Français, an association of the St-John Valley in Maine that wants to promote the use of French in the region to reverse the assimilation process. The flag was spotted by Chris Pinette last summer. I suppose that the