Old Minnesota State Flag vs the New 2024 Design

Minnesota retired its state flag on 11 May 2024, and the change has stayed contentious ever since. The pre-2024 design — the state seal on a royal blue field, ringed by nineteen stars for Minnesota’s place as the nineteenth state admitted after the original thirteen — flew for over a century, and a great many Minnesotans still prefer it.

The case for replacing it was partly technical. Vexillologists have long argued that a detailed seal on a plain field makes a poor flag: unreadable at distance, and nearly indistinguishable from a dozen other states when hanging limp. The sharper objection was to the seal’s imagery, which depicted a farmer working while a Native American figure rode away — a scene widely read as showing displacement.

Critics of the redesign see it differently, arguing that a perfectly serviceable emblem was discarded for symbolic reasons and that heritage was the casualty. That argument is still live in local government: several counties, Itasca among the most widely reported, voted to keep flying the historic flag over county property.

Retiring a flag as the official state emblem places no restriction on flying it, so the historic design remains legal for anyone to display — and demand for it has not gone away. For the full history of both designs, the symbolism in the old seal, and which sizes are still manufactured now that the major mills have retooled, see this detailed guide to the old Minnesota state flag.

Other state flags are available too, including the state flag of New Jersey.