Flag of Ohio

What the flag shows

Ohio’s flag law gives a meaning to every part of the design.

• The shape. A swallowtail burgee, or pennant, rather than a rectangle.
• Three red and two white stripes. Ohio’s roads and waterways.
• The blue triangle. At the staff, for the state’s hills and valleys.
• Seventeen white stars. Thirteen grouped around the circle for the original states, and four more at the triangle’s peak marking Ohio’s admission as the 17th state.
• The circle. A white “O” with a red disc in its center, for Ohio and for its nickname, the Buckeye State.

A flag for a fair

For nearly its first century of statehood Ohio had no official flag. The burgee was first made in 1901 to fly over the Ohio building at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, and the General Assembly formally adopted John Eisenmann’s design on May 9, 1902.

The meanings have shifted since. Reporting at the time said the five stripes stood for the five states carved from the Northwest Territory and the circle for the territory itself. The current statute, which took effect in 2002, says instead that the stripes are roads and waterways and the circle is Ohio and the buckeye.

Rules for the flag

Laws that took effect in 2002 also set rules for displaying and disposing of the flag. A flag damaged beyond repair is to be destroyed privately, by burning it or by sealing it in a bag or box before throwing it away. The same year Ohio adopted an official pledge: “I salute the flag of the state of Ohio and pledge to the buckeye state respect and loyalty.” By law it may not replace the US Pledge of Allegiance or be recited before it.

Seventeen folds

Since May 18, 2005, Ohio law has set out a recommended way to fold the state flag, devised by Eagle Scout Alex Weinstock of Somerset. It takes 17 folds, matching Ohio’s place as the 17th state, and two people to carry it out. Unlike the US flag’s triangle, the finished fold is a compact rectangle.