Flag of Sutherland

Flag of Sutherland
Proportion	3:5
Adopted	26 January 2018 =

The Sutherland flag is the flag of the county of Sutherland. It was registered with the Flag Institute as the official flag of the county in 2018. The flag was announced in the Northern Times newspaper in January 2018 following a competition to devise a county flag, established by the local community in conjunction with the Flag Institute and added to the Flag Institute registry a week later. The design features a swooping eagle, seen face on, against a vertical bicoloured red and yellow background, with the eagle counterchanged yellow and red. The pattern is intended to symbolise the county’s position with both Atlantic Ocean and North Sea coasts. At the hoist are three red stars or mullets. These, plus the red and yellow colour combination, are taken from the arms borne by Hugh de Moray Earl of Sutherland. The design is an amalgamation of three submissions to the competition which were amalgamated by a committee formed of local dignitaries, schoolchildren and representation from the Flag Institute. “The eagle featured prominently on a considerable number of the entries, indeed much more so than the wildcat. Its current prominence in many parts of Sutherland was selected as a unifying factor across the county. Since the overwhelming factor in the design was ‘unity’, this is provided by the eagle.” The bicoloured eagle illustration ( red part on yellow and yellow part on red) reflects the two species of raptor present in the county, the red being a sea eagle, the yellow, a golden eagle as detailed above. Combining the two also emphasised a sought for county “unifying” factor.

References

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