iPedia Free Information Center

Information about Flag Of Alaska

Enlarge picture
The flag of Alaska
The flag of Alaska consists of eight gold stars, forming the Big Dipper and the North Star, on a dark blue field.

It was designed in 1927 by Benny Benson, a 13-year-old Alaska Native residing in Seward, for a contest to create a flag for the then-Alaska Territory. Up to that time, Alaskans had flown only the U.S. flag since the territory was purchased from Russia in 1867. Benson's design was chosen over roughly 700 other submissions from schoolchildren statewide in grades 7–12. Most other entries featured variations on the state seal, the midnight sun, the northern lights, polar bears, and/or gold pans. To celebrate his achievement, Benson was awarded $1,000 and an engraved watch. Benny looked to the sky for the symbols he included in his design, and he submitted this description with it:

The blue field is for the Alaska sky and the forget-me-not, an Alaskan flower. The North Star is for the future state of Alaska, the most northerly in the union. The Dipper is for the Great Bear—symbolizing strength.


The Big Dipper is an asterism in the constellation Ursa Major which symbolizes a bear, an animal indigenous to Alaska.

The Alaska Legislature adopted Benson's design as the official flag for the Territory of Alaska on May 2, 1927. The first flag made based on Benny's design was made of blue silk and appliquéd gold stars, and was inaugurally flown July 9, 1927. It was retained as the state flag upon statehood in 1959.

The flag's symbolism is described in the state song, "Alaska's Flag".

External links

 •  • [ e]
Flags of the U.S. states, federal district, and insular areas
StatesAlabama 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
Federal DistrictWashington, D.C. (District of Columbia)
Insular AreasAmerican Samoa Guam Northern Mariana Islands Puerto Rico U.S. Virgin Islands
 •  • [ e]
State of Alaska
Juneau (capital)
Geography | Climate | Wildlife | History | Demographics | Transportation | Government | Music | Economy | Culture
Regions Aleutian Islands | Arctic Alaska | Bush Alaska | Interior | Kenai Peninsula | Mat‑Su Valley | North Slope | Panhandle | Seward Peninsula | Southcentral | Southwest | Tanana Valley | Yukon‑Kuskokwim Delta
Largest cities Anchorage | Barrow | Bethel | Dillingham | Fairbanks | Homer | Juneau | Kenai | Ketchikan | Kodiak | Kotzebue | Nome | Palmer | Petersburg | Seward | Sitka | Unalaska | Valdez | Wasilla
Boroughs Aleutians East | Anchorage | Bristol Bay | Denali | Fairbanks North Star | Haines | Juneau | Kenai Peninsula | Ketchikan Gateway | Kodiak Island | Lake and Peninsula | Matanuska‑Susitna | North Slope | Northwest Arctic | Sitka | Yakutat
Census Areas Aleutians West | Bethel | Dillingham | Nome | Prince of Wales‑Outer Ketchikan | Skagway‑Hoonah‑Angoon | Southeast Fairbanks | Valdez‑Cordova | Wade Hampton | Wrangell‑Petersburg | Yukon‑Koyukuk
flag is a piece of woven cloth, often flown from a pole or mast, generally used symbolically for signalling or identification. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed by a flag, or to its depiction in another medium.
..... Click the link for more information.
Alaska

Flag of Alaska Seal
Nickname(s): The Last Frontier
Motto(s): "North to the Future"

Official language(s) None[1]
Spoken language(s) English 85.7%,
Native North American 5.
..... Click the link for more information.
Great Bear, form a well-known asterism that has been recognized as a distinct grouping in many cultures from time immemorial.

Names and lore

Europe

In the United Kingdom this pattern is known as the Plough
..... Click the link for more information.
North Star is a title of the star best suited for navigation northwards. A candidate for navigation northward must be viewable from Earth and circumpolar to the north celestial pole. The current one is Polaris.
..... Click the link for more information.
20th century - 21st century
1890s  1900s  1910s  - 1920s -  1930s  1940s  1950s
1924 1925 1926 - 1927 - 1928 1929 1930

Year 1927 (MCMXXVII
..... Click the link for more information.
John Ben "Benny" Benson, Jr. (1913-1972) is the designer of the flag of Alaska. Benny was 13 when he won in a contest to design the flag for the Territory of Alaska, which became a state in 1959.
..... Click the link for more information.
Alaska Natives are indigenous peoples of the Americas native to the state of Alaska within the United States. They include Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, and several Native American peoples, including Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Eyak, and a number of Northern Athabaskan peoples.
..... Click the link for more information.
Seward, Alaska
Aerial view of Seward, Alaska

Coordinates:
Country United States
State Alaska
Borough Kenai Peninsula
Established 1903
Incorporated 1912

..... Click the link for more information.
Alaska Territory became an organized, incorporated territory of the United States.

The Second Organic Act of 1912, renamed the District of Alaska as the Territory of Alaska.[2] By 1916, its population was about 58,000.
..... Click the link for more information.
Anthem
Hymn of the Russian Federation


Capital
(and largest city) Moscow

..... Click the link for more information.
midnight sun is a phenomenon occurring in latitudes north and nearby to the south of the Arctic Circle and south and nearby to the north of the Antarctic Circle where the sun remains visible at the local midnight.
..... Click the link for more information.
Auroras (or aurorae) [sing: aurora] are natural colored light displays, which are usually observed in the night sky, particularly in the polar zone. Some scientists therefore call them "polar auroras" (or "aurorae polaris").
..... Click the link for more information.

..... Click the link for more information.
Myosotis

Species

about 50

The Forget-me-nots are the genus Myosotis of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae.

There are about 50 species in the genus, and among them there is considerable variation.
..... Click the link for more information.
Polaris (α UMi / α Ursae Minoris / Alpha Ursae Minoris), more commonly known as The North Star or simply North Star, is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor.
..... Click the link for more information.
Great Bear, form a well-known asterism that has been recognized as a distinct grouping in many cultures from time immemorial.

Names and lore

Europe

In the United Kingdom this pattern is known as the Plough
..... Click the link for more information.
Ursa major

Click for larger image
List of stars in Ursa major
Abbreviation: UMa
Genitive: Ursae Majoris
Symbology: the Great Bear
Right ascension: 10.67 h
Declination: +55.38
Area: 1280 sq. deg.
..... Click the link for more information.
Ursa major

Click for larger image
List of stars in Ursa major
Abbreviation: UMa
Genitive: Ursae Majoris
Symbology: the Great Bear
Right ascension: 10.67 h
Declination: +55.38
Area: 1280 sq. deg.
..... Click the link for more information.
Ursidae
G. Fischer de Waldheim, 1817

Genera

Ailuropoda
Helarctos
Melursus
Ursavus "true bear"
Ursus
Tremarctos
Agriarctos (extinct)
Amphicticeps (extinct)

..... Click the link for more information.
The Alaska Statehood Act was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 7, 1958, allowing Alaska to become the 49th U.S. state on January 3, 1959.

History: The Road to Statehood

Alaska's struggle for statehood was a long and difficult one.
..... Click the link for more information.
20th century - 21st century
1920s  1930s  1940s  - 1950s -  1960s  1970s  1980s
1956 1957 1958 - 1959 - 1960 1961 1962

Year 1959 (MCMLIX
..... Click the link for more information.
Alaska's Flag" is the state song of Alaska. Long-time Alaska Department of Education employee Marie Drake echoed flag creator Benny Benson's sentiments of his design in a poem she wrote in 1935 - this formed the basis for the Alaskan state song composed by Elinor Dusenbury whose
..... Click the link for more information.
Portable Document Format (PDF)

Adobe Reader displaying a PDF in Microsoft Windows Vista
File extension: .pdf
MIME type: application/pdf
Type code: 'PDF ' (including a single space)
..... Click the link for more information.
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software by Adobe Systems. These applications use Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) as their native file format. Some software in the family is commercial, and some free of charge.
..... Click the link for more information.
The flags of the U.S. states exhibit a wide variety of regional influences and local histories, as well as widely different styles and design principles. Modern state flags date from the 1890s when states wanted to have distinctive symbols at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
..... Click the link for more information.
United States of America

This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
the United States


Federal government
Constitution
Taxation

President Vice President
Cabinet


Congress
Senate
..... Click the link for more information.
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.
..... Click the link for more information.
The flag of Arizona consists of 13 rays of red and gold (the conquistador colors and of the flag of Spain) on the top half, representing the original 13 colonies, as well as portraying Arizona's legendary sunsets.
..... Click the link for more information.
The flag of the U.S. state of Arkansas consists of a diamond on a red field, representing Arkansas's diamond mines (Arkansas was the first state where diamonds were mined naturally).
..... Click the link for more information.
The flag of California was first flown during the Bear Flag Revolt as the flag of the California Republic, and a modified version was then adopted by the California State Legislature and signed into law by Governor Hiram Johnson in 1911 as the official state flag.
..... Click the link for more information.


This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Herod_Archelaus


page counter