The flag of Denver is the official flag of the City and County of Denver in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. It was designed by a North High School student, Margaret Overbeck, and adopted in 1926. A

zigzag A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within the zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular. In geometry, this pattern is described as ...

white stripe horizontally separates a red field below from a blue

field Field may refer to: Expanses of open ground * Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes * Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport * Battlefield * Lawn, an area of mowed grass * Meadow, a grass ...

above, in which is centered a yellow circle, together forming a stylized depiction of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

in a blue sky above snow-capped mountains. The color yellow symbolizes gold in the state's hills, and red the colored earth to which the word ''colorado'' refers. The circle's centered position symbolizes Denver's central location within the state. The white zigzag symbolizes Colorado's Native American heritage. In a 2004 review by the

North American Vexillological Association The North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) is a membership organization devoted to vexillology, the scientific and scholarly study of flags. It was founded in 1967 by American vexillologist Whitney Smith (1940–2016), and others. It ...

of 150 U.S. city flags, the Denver city flag was ranked third best, behind the flags of

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. "2004 American City Flags Survey"
North American Vexillological Association press release, 2 October 2004 In heraldic

vexillology Vexillology ( ) is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags or, by extension, any interest in flags in general.Smith, Whitney. ''Flags Through the Ages and Across the World'' New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975. Print. The word is a synthe ...

, the flag is blazoned ''Per fess dancetty of two azure and gules a fess dancetty of two argent in chief a bezant''.

References

Flag Flags of cities in Colorado Flags introduced in 1926 1926 establishments in Colorado {{US-flag-stub